Rob's Running Blog

6K Easy Recovery Run – Hot and Sunny – 36m 30s

This was a very sedate and slow run, just to get back into the running after Sunday’s tough race.

I do have a problem with running slowly. OK, compared to an elite, I am very slow anyway – but what I mean is, once I get going, I am always tempted to up the pace, as I don’t feel I’m really doing much unless I’m breathing hard and feeling pain! Yet easy runs are very important (I am still not sure why scientifically – but will save that for a future post) – I think basically, you cannot keep pushing your body, so it likes to tick over in a lower gear for a bit, just as it likes to rest completely sometimes, just as it benefits from some harder punishment now and then 🙂

Anyway, it was very hot and sunny, so I set my Garmin to alert me if I went any faster than 5:40 per kilometre. At first it kept bleeping, but I’ve noticed Garmins can be a bit erratic until you’ve done a few kilometres; in any case, it helped me to go very, very slowly – and every time I absent mindedly started going faster, my Garmin alerted me. When I reached the big steep hill leading to the little suburban place called Haughton Green, I took a leisurely walk up, and felt fresh when I started another slow jog back home, and by the time I finished I’d done 6k in a very sedate 36 mins and 30 seconds. With it being another really hot day, it was nice to do a run that I enjoyed – it reminded me a little of when I used to walk a lot – I felt I could have just jogged like that for miles and miles as if it was merely walking – but I would still have done a 10k in about an hour, which is what some people aim for going flat out.

I think my aim will be to slowly increase my comfort pace – so maybe one day jogging 6k in 30 mins will be just as easy – but I always want to make my easy runs easy now – and setting the Garmin really helped, although I couldn’t resist a speedy burst for about 20 metres near the end, just to stretch the legs and remind myself what it was like to go fast! I might do some more of this in future, combining speedy bursts with a slow jog – now whether that’s interval training, fartlek or speedwork I will have to figure out! 😀