Running Slow Is Hard

Going into Week #13 of my journey towards the title of Ironman, training is going great. I can swim farther, ride at a faster pace, and run with more efficiency than ever. As I've mentioned before, my body is adapting well to the many hours of training and intense workouts. Each week I look forward to my training sessions and view them as building blocks to the ultimate goal on August 24^th.

This past weekend my wife, Ashley, and I traveled to Ohio to visit my family for Easter and I was a little apprehensive about how I was going to get in my workouts. Because of my schedule at the fire department, we only get a handful of opportunities each year to visit friends and family. In addition, the 8 hours of driving and 500+ miles over 4 states do not help either.  More often than not, our visits are very busy and making time to see everyone can be quite the task. Hence, the reason why I was so nervous about finding time for a 2.5 hour bike ride and two separate 1 hour runs. Thankfully, with a little forethought and careful planning I was able to get in all of my workouts without cutting into family time.  Even if that meant starting a run at 8PM or waking up at 5AM for a bike ride.

On Saturday morning, I hooked up with a local group of cyclists from Ride On Bikes in Wooster, Ohio for a comfortable country ride through rural (and flat) Wayne County. The pace was more relaxed than I’ve grown accustomed to over the past few weeks but, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. The week prior I had pushed myself a little too hard with a fast paced-high intensity assault on Greenville’s Paris Mountain so needless to say, my legs needed an easy day. The easy ride on Saturday made Sunday’s long run awesome. When I say awesome, I mean totally freaking unreal.

Sunday's run on the Towpath Trail in Canal Fulton, Ohio

 

Two miles into my run I was running a 6:50 pace and my heartrate barely hit 160 beats/minute. My maximum heartrate is 195 so, only hitting 160 is aerobically equivalent to slowly jogging around the neighborhood for most people. I hate to be cliché but, I felt light as air and as fast as lightning. Although, I simply knew better... I knew better than to give into my instinct to run fast because, eventually my heartrate was going to spike and I was going to run out of gas. I knew from what I had read in Iron Fit, Runner’s World magazine, and had seen online that running faster means burning fuel faster. Yes, every time I ran I could go as fast as possible. I could blow the socks off of every other runner right from the starting line but, I wouldn’t get very far before “blowing up”. In an Ironman triathlon or marathon, speed is nice and can be achieved over time but… slow, steady, and efficient is the name of the game.

I unhappily fought the natural urge to run fast and I pulled in the reigns before I was gasping for air with a heartrate of 189. Running slow is hard! It’s hard to fight that voice inside of you telling you to go faster and run harder. It’s hard to run an easy relaxed pace when you know you’re capable of speeding up.

In an article for Competitor.com Matt Fitzgerald explained it perfectly:

“Why do the fastest runners do most of their running at slow speeds? Because they run a lot, and if they ran a lot and did most of their running at high intensities they would quickly burn out. But you can also turn this answer upside down and say that elite runners run slowly most of the time so that they can run a lot. Research has shown that average weekly running mileage is the best training predictor of racing performance in runners. The more we run, the faster we race. Keeping the pace slow most of the time enables runners to run more without burning out.”

It’s just like the story of the Tortoise and The Hare… slow and steady wins the race. Although Sunday’s run might have been my 10K or 1 mile personal best, I ran with my head, not with my heart and I ran SLOW.

 

Guess My Finish Time Week #13 Progress

Swim 100 Meters - 1:51

Bike Average Speed - 18.2 Mph

Run Average Pace - 8:17/Mile

(**Average AG Finish Time ~ 2.5 - 3 hours**)