It’s no secret that the past year has been a giant off-season for many runners, myself included.
Without any race, it’s difficult to push oneself into fitness. The obvious question is what for? Certainly, the feeling of being fit – light, agile, and eating as much as one can afford – is precious. But all that comes at the price of high intensity training.
Instead, what I have done thus far is running at a maintenance pace. Generally at easy pace. Three times a week with a few surges sprinkled in. Nothing hard nor VO2Max like. That is except yesterday, when I got carried away and ended up paying for it.
You see, I was feeling great. The weather was gorgeous: temperature in the high 60s (Fahrenheit), cloudy with a little sun, and my inner self, for some reasons, was raring to run. By the time near the half way mark I checked my watch, and I was running too fast.
Instead of 10 minute pace, I was running 8:30 min pace during my out-and-back 8 mile route. Because my fitness level, or more precisely the lack of it, my overzealous pace on the way out was paying in advance for my way back. My legs got heavy, and I had to push just to finish.
Normally, a 8 mile run is not tedious at the easy pace. But yesterday was different. It felt like I was running in a second half of a marathon.
Do you know your fitness level? How do you keep yourself healthy during the pandemic?
Running with Buddha 