I get it! I get it! I get it!

In the words of Michael Scott of Dunder Mifflin Paper Company, "I had an epiphery." Yes, I know "epiphery" is not a word... but Michael Scott does not know that. For those of you who watch The Office, I know you know what I mean.

Anyway, I get it. I finally understand how training works. Or maybe I understood a long time ago, and then I got too big for my britches and got confused about training. Then I got humbled, and now I understand how it works again.

Long story short, I knew that I could not go back to training the way I had been before my injury. I absolutely respect Miguel. I admire him so much! The man is a work horse and he just believes in people's abilities as much as his own. Unfortunately my ability is nowhere near the level he was coaching me at. I made the mistake of not speaking up and eventually, my injuries spoke up for me. He sincerely apologized for my injuries even though they were not HIS fault! He also offered to help me or mentor me anytime I needed it. I may take him up on that offer down the road when my abilities are MUCH, much better. For the time being, I needed a drastic change.

Okay, so after some soul searching and advice seeking I made contact with a new coach. He was referred to me by a very trusted fellow blogger and runner. What I like about him is that although he has hopes for me and wants me to meet my goals, he is honest about my current abilities.

For example, I asked him if I should be using the McMillan Calculator to get paces for my workouts and he said that, for the time being and because I'm coming back from injury, the McMillan tables are a little too aggressive for me. He said to aim for paces that are literally between my actual PR paces and the paces prescribed by McMillan. So today I did a workout that way...

THE WORKOUT: 8 x 1 mile intervals at marathon PR pace with 1:00 active recoveries (to mimic tempo type running) . I have NEVER done more than 6 x 1 mile intervals. So I was nervous.

Based on my recent 8K race and his advice above I decided to run these between 7:05-7:15/mile. The McMillan Calc prescribed 7:00-7:09. My current marathon PR pace is 7:33/mile. So... somewhere comfortably in between. Coach had even said, "Base it on your fitness and how you feel you're coming around." This took a lot of pressure off me. After a two mile warm up jog, I got right into the intervals:

6:56 felt very comfortable, almost easy, but alas, too fast for this workout's purpose
7:10 right where I want to be, felt a bit slow though
7:06 I obviously don't know how to pace
7:15 what the heck?
7:04 felt like I pushed it a little in the last quarter
7:13 okay, now I'm just feeling tired
7:13 I can feel the heaviness in my legs and hips and back. Is this LACTIC ACID?
7:08 I felt like I was jogging the last quarter mile... definitely lactic acid

I was so elated to be done and to not have quit after the 6th one. I thanked God out loud.
So I definitely need to work on my pacing a bit, or stare at my Garmin the whole time (which is annoying).

LESSON LEARNED: No need to be nervous about a workout if I run it WITHIN MY CURRENT ABILITY! Duh! (Bonica will love this). ;-) Yes, it's all about being realistic with yourself (myself) and not getting in over our heads (my head). I so enjoyed this workout today because I was able to do it and be where I was supposed to be with regard to training pace.

Another lesson -- a couple of years ago I was running my workouts harder than my races and getting very disappointed in my race performances. I sought advice from Steve Sellars (a phenomenal masters runner and fellow RWOL user) who told me that I needed to tone it down a little on my workouts and save something for my races. Basically, stop racing my workouts. I did... and then I improved like crazy! Somewhere along the line, I lost sight of that and tried to workout super, super hard. My racing began to suck and then I got injured, and you know the story...

So, back to basics. Train hard, but don't race my workouts. Save it for race day, and then go to town! Most importantly, have patience and don't jump the gun (so to speak).

Thanks for reading!