8k last weekend, and Zombies 5 & 6

[rmc28]

Last weekend's long run was 8k, for which I tried out a 2.5:1 run:walk ratio.  This is more running than suggested for my pace and in fact I ran it slower than the 6.5k the previous week.  So perhaps I was overegging myself.

On the run I was thinking about my warm up and whether I should still be doing it - in many sports, running is the warm up, and on longer runs I start off slower anyway to pace myself.   So on Monday when I did Zombies 5 I tried not warming up, just walking for as long as it took to get the app going and then running gently.  The main thing I noticed was that my lower legs were really cold and stiff-feeling until a good ten minutes in - thinking of ballet dancers and legwarmers I've resolved to run with full-length leggings while the weather stays this cold.

So, that went well, I ran a slightly shorter route because I was running for more of it, and this also took a bit of the time pressure off my lunch hour.

Today for mission 6 I tried turning the zombie chases back on.  I deliberately paced myself a little slower than I felt I could go, so that I had some headroom for the 20% increase on the chases, and I borrowed liv 's technique of walking for a couple of minutes after the chase - I didn't actually time this but judged it by how my breathing had recovered.  This all seemed to pay off as I managed to dodge all 4 chases, and achieve a better overall pace than on Monday.  (Yes - four chases, an extra one snuck in as I was nearly back to my office but I decided to go for it as I'd been walking so even a slowish run was enough to succeed.)

This weekend my "long" run is actually quite short, including a "magic mile" time trial which has been something of a challenge to put together in RunKeeper.  I'm looking forward to it.

Comments

[liv]

Wow, 5 miles, that's amazing, go you! I would expect an 8K run to be slower than a 6.5K one regardless, so I reckon if 2.5:1 is comfortable for you then you can probably get away with it.

Impressive on the zombies missions too, and it's an interesting experiment changing the warmup to gentler running rather than walking. I find that it takes me about 5 minutes to get physically warm when I'm running outside in cool temperatures, but about 10-15 minutes for my lungs to realize, oh right, we're running now, let's switch to deep even breathing rather than gasping. Well done on evading the chases! It may be psychological but I really think including those sprints is helping with my fitness.

[rmc28]

The sprints definitely add to the drama of the game :-) Now I've adjusted to the robot voice and can actually tell when they are starting and stopping I'm finding them more fun than my first attempt. I'm glad you gave me the idea of walking afterwards as they do take it out of me. For me, it's partly the promised improvement in fitness, and partly learning to be more aware of my pace.