advice on how to mix goals

zornig

So in the past few weeks I've been working most actively on getting faster. It's happening, although perhaps not as easily/quickly as I'd like. That said, because I've had speed on my mind, my ability to run distance has really suffered. Today I was intending to run 10K at or near my usual pace of around 11: min/mile. But I ran the following splits for the first 3 miles: 10:33, 9:40, and 9:33. At that point I had gone out too fast, and had to stop to walk for a while. Overall I had a pretty decent run of 5.37 miles in 1 hour, for an average pace of 11:19. A month or so ago, I would have been super stoked about these numbers. Today however it just looks like fail: didn't make 10K, didn't run the whole way, didn't hit my target pace.

Does anybody have suggestions for how to turn off my "speed brain" when I go out for my longer runs? If I wind up shooting for my goal 5K pace I'm obviously going to crack and achieve neither the 5K speed I want nor the distance goal for the day.

PaytraB

I make one of my weekend runs a slow, loping run where I aim more for a distance run and don't worry about the speed at all. It's hard and I have to keep aware of my speed and slow myself down if I speed up. Depending on the day, I'll run up to about 7K on these runs.
My other runs throughout the week, I adjust to energy level, time I can spare, etc. and aim to run some splits, recover with slow runs & sometimes a recovery walk (1 minute). On these runs, I don't usually run 5K without a short recovery break. On other days, I want to run 5K, so I do that first, then use the rest of my time doing splits.
During the bad weather when I'm on a treadmill, I alternate between speed work and incline work. The TV helps: I run my usual speed during a show and speed it right up during the commercials or lower incline during the show & higher incline during commercials.
It's kind of a mixed bag for me, yet over the winter I've gotten quicker (shaved about 2 minutes off my 5K time).

I think your times are great. Give it time and you'll be right where you want to be. Way to go!

smiffy645

You could try using a metronome or mentally counting. I use a count of four steps and from that I can get a feeling of what my pace is like. It's really hard to run at a slower than what feels natural in my experience.

sjohnny

Some days it's hard to slow down. Things just feel good. Saturday I had a 10 mile run. The weather was nice and cool and I was just feeling it. I usually try to maintain between 9:30 and 10:30 for my long runs and I had to keep reining myself in on Saturday. What I normally do when that happens is try to hold back for the first half of the run and then if I'm still feeling strong I'll let myself go for the third quarter and if I'm still feeling strong go ahead and open it up for the end. That's basically what I did Saturday and ended up averaging 8:57 for my 10 miler and still felt strong as hell at the end (my PR half marathon pace was 8:51).

Sunday morning I got up and ran 6.5 miles and was only a minute and a half off my goal time for next weeks race when I hit the 10K point.

But anyway, it's a little easier for me to slow down at the beginning if I have told myself I can open it up later if I'm still wanting to.

lorierin22

Pacing is something that I am currently working on myself. When I am trying to go out for a easy or long run and I need to slow down, I have only found two things that work for me...hills and slow music.

If I can't get myself to calm down just by trying to run slower, then I hit the side of my neighborhood that is hilly and that usually does the trick. Essentially, I have just turned my easy run into something else all together...but my pace does get slower.

Not sure if you listen to music when you run, but my pace is almost completely dependant on the music I listen to. So much so that I have a playlist that is just for racing because it has all of my faster, upbeat songs. When I hit a slow song on my regular play list, I inevitably slow down...even if I didn't mean to.

zornig

Pacing is something that I am currently working on myself. When I am trying to go out for a easy or long run and I need to slow down, I have only found two things that work for me...hills and slow music.

If I can't get myself to calm down just by trying to run slower, then I hit the side of my neighborhood that is hilly and that usually does the trick. Essentially, I have just turned my easy run into something else all together...but my pace does get slower.

Not sure if you listen to music when you run, but my pace is almost completely dependant on the music I listen to. So much so that I have a playlist that is just for racing because it has all of my faster, upbeat songs. When I hit a slow song on my regular play list, I inevitably slow down...even if I didn't mean to.

Hills would be great if there were any here! I live in flat, flat Florida. But I will definitely give the slower paced music suggestion a try. I definitely know that I get particularly amped up when a high energy song I love comes on. So perhaps I'll feel mellower and take it easier if a more down tempo song is playing. Thanks!

davemunger

If you are planning on 11 minute miles, run 11 minute miles. If you go under that pace for a mile, then walk until your average pace is back down to 11:00 per mile. Don't go three miles before you make that adjustment!

SonicDeathMonkey80

If I'm concerned about being speedy on a long run, I'll do some pacework the day before to ensure I'm too fatigued to go fast. Works every time

sarahz5

Do you have a watch, or are you using an app and only checking in at the end of each mile? It sounds like you need a more constant source of info about your pace so that you can slow yourself down not even just after the first mile, but within the first mile.

For long runs, tell yourself that you are not allowed to go *below* a certain pace - make it in your brain that going too fast is a fail, rather than too slow.

I second the gentler music recommendation - that's how I pace myself for the beginning of races.

tappae

I use my heart rate to tell me when to slow down. If you have a heart rate monitor, this is easy. I just take mine manually whenever I have to stop at a light and then adjust my pace accordingly. I try to keep mine under 140 bpm, which results in a variety of paces, depending on conditions, temperature, fatigue, etc.

Another idea is to use a running gps. Mine gives an average speed. I use it to find my pace in races, but I've used it for pacing slow runs, too.

zornig

Do you have a watch, or are you using an app and only checking in at the end of each mile? It sounds like you need a more constant source of info about your pace so that you can slow yourself down not even just after the first mile, but within the first mile.

For long runs, tell yourself that you are not allowed to go *below* a certain pace - make it in your brain that going too fast is a fail, rather than too slow.

I second the gentler music recommendation - that's how I pace myself for the beginning of races.

I use a Garmin 910T, but I try not to look at it too obsessively while I'm running! Ha ha ha. I have it set up to auto-lap at 1 mile, so I can see my pace for that mile easily, and then I have a distance alert set up for every 5K. But even when I do look at my pace regularly, and see that I'm going too fast, my efforts at slowing myself down typically fail after about 15 seconds. I'm trying to run more at the end of the day when it's hotter and sunnier, as I definitely can't go my fastest under those conditions. That seems to help a bit too, although I then also feel extra hot and thirsty. I'll get the hang of it eventually!