{"id":431,"date":"2012-06-13T09:35:06","date_gmt":"2012-06-13T17:35:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/?p=431"},"modified":"2012-06-13T09:35:06","modified_gmt":"2012-06-13T17:35:06","slug":"you-gotta-run-slow","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/2012\/06\/13\/you-gotta-run-slow\/","title":{"rendered":"You Gotta Run Slow"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted this over at Runner’s World<\/a>, just for the heck of it…<\/em><\/p>\n

Bit of background: always wanted to run, usually hated it: lungs, blisters, etc. Finally read No Need for Speed<\/em>, realized slow running was just fine. Finally found out about non-cotton socks. Finally found a way to run and not hate it. Been at it now 4 years, 3600 lifetime miles, one marathon, dozens of halfs, currently 40 years old, 5\u20198\u201d 185 lbs, etc. I\u2019m so average, I make vanilla look exotic.<\/p>\n

Back when I got started running I aimed for 10-minute miles. Longer runs dipped into the 11:30 per mile range at the end, and I could scorch a 5k at 9:45 per if I didn\u2019t mind resting a few days after. I never really tried to \u201ctrain\u201d for speed\u2014I was just trying to stay on the road longer, if I could. I remember the first time I ran for 75 continuous minutes. Almost \u00a07 miles! It was glorious. Almost as glorious as the beer I had afterwards. Okay, fine, beers.<\/p>\n

Books and magazines recommended so-called \u201cTempo\u201d runs, but frankly, I was baffled. How do people know what pace they\u2019re running at? Is there really that<\/em> much difference between 10k pace and half-marathon pace? Can a person really know that they\u2019re running at \u201c10 seconds less than 5k pace.\u201d Ah well. I was just in it for sweat and the excuse to listen to loud music in my iPod. On good days I might<\/em> have been able to say \u201cI finished that guitar solo one telephone pole earlier than usual, hmm\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

I figured I\u2019d just log a few thousand miles and see what happened. And what happened was that I did get faster, of course. I live in Seattle- it\u2019s hard to not run up hills here. And hills just make you faster. And running longer, naturally, makes you faster. And I started running more consistently, too. Instead of a run starting around 9:30 per mile and ending around 11:30, I was better able to stay within 30 seconds or so of per-mile variance. Not an elite achievement, to be sure, but the mark of a little road experience.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, when I say\u00a0 got faster, I got only<\/em> faster. It got to the point where a 5k run or a 10 mile run was at about 8:45 per mile, give or take. \u00a0No matter what. (I know this isn\u2019t really \u201cfast.\u201d I ain\u2019t qualifying for Boston at that speed.) I still had no idea how people were able to know the difference between their various tempos.<\/p>\n

And I was so in love with running. I wanted to do more than 15 miles per week, but I just couldn\u2019t manage more than three days out of seven. Maybe four every once in a while. More than that and I was getting overuse injuries. It was very frustrating. Yes, I was faster, but I felt like I was back at the drawing board.<\/p>\n

So one day, I decided, if I\u2019m back at the beginning, I\u2019ll start over. Why not? Why not run slow, like I used to? Yes, when I started, a 5k was<\/em> a marathon. So I\u2019d try running at my old pace. I went out and did 5 miles at about 9:45 per mile. It was tough, forcing myself to slow down. Had to put slow songs on my iPod, songs I\u2019d never run to before. I am living proof one can<\/em> run while listening to Adele. Not ashamed to say it.<\/p>\n

And I tried running slow again the next day. And then a third day. No soreness, no fatigue. I decided to take another page from the conventional wisdom, and force myself to rest one day. But after that, I did another three-day mini streak\u2014and two of those days where back-to-back eight milers! I had run six days out of seven, and covered three times as many miles.<\/p>\n

So here I am, falling in love with running all over again, and logging more miles, more days. I\u2019ve got way more songs that are run-appropriate now to try out. And since more running means I get to drink more beers, I\u2019m thinking this \u201crun slow\u201d thing is actually a gift from the Heavens. Lotterty, schmottery. I got my miles!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Posted this over at Runner’s World, just for the heck of it… Bit of background: always wanted to run, usually hated it: lungs, blisters, etc. Finally read No Need for Speed, realized slow running was just fine. Finally found out about non-cotton socks. Finally found a way to run and not hate it. Been at … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “You Gotta Run Slow”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-431","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-running"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p24y52-6X","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=431"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":432,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/431\/revisions\/432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=431"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=431"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bukkhead.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=431"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}