Today was the official NYRR long run in central park. I ran 19.2mi ALL BAREFOOT! I am very pleased with the run today. The pace was not too bad either. Excluding about 23min of walking/standing breaks (the GPS stops if I am going slower than 15mpm), actual running pace was sub-10mpm at 9:52 which is much better than most long runs I have done in past. Also the weekly mileage now stands at 41.4mi which beats my mileage PR of 39mi at a peak last year. And its "bare"ly end of first month into the training!
I guess, the new lesson learnt today is that running barefoot REQUIRES full alertness otherwise the form deteriorates and within seconds the feet start hurting. Couple of times I got lazy and that caused abrasion on sole reminding me about being alert. Looking at the positive side of this limitation is that staying in good form and pace made it easy for me to run more than my target 16mi. Even after getting home, I wasnt hurting too bad and could easily balance on one leg while scrubbing the other bent in shower. It sounds weird but i dont think I could do that after my previous long runs in shoes. Balancing is the first thing we loose after long runs. It will become clear in couple of days as I see intensity of DOMS developing. I am pretty sure I am not injured anywhere but limiting DOMS would be so nice.
Other interesting part of my run was that I continued to run very fast on grass portions whenever I could; typically at 8mpm pace. I am now convinced that running fast uses different set of muscles and actually makes the rest of the run easy as long as I get the heart rate to drop back quickly before lactic acid builds up. It was a lot of fun being passed by people only to pass them again in later while running in grass and then again get passed.
Few cool stats:
Fastest Half marathon distance: 2:05hrs @9:30mpm
Fastest 10K distance: 56:55min @9:09mpm
Fastest mile split 8:26mpm
Fastes half mi split: 7:30mpm
Avg HR: 165bpm (exactly 80% of max...LT is around 175bpm/85%)
Max HR: 188bpm (92% of max!)
Ironically, the only real regret I have is that the run finished before the rain storm. Now its raining outside but obviously I cant go run:-( If it wasnt for the organized run, I probably could have pushed the run till it started raining. I still havent explored if I can run long enough in rain given higher chance or blister/puncture due to softening of skin. But that will have to wait for another day:-)
BF in NY for 325mi
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