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| Sure looked like fall along the trail |
Today's run (Bethpage): 6.25 miles
The Hope for Warriors 10K next weekend prompted me to head to Bethpage this morning for a base run. I've plateaued on distance since Cow Harbor, having completed only a handful of 5+ mile runs since that race. After a week of rainy and windy conditions, today's clear, dry 57° weather made a run at Bethpage very appealing.
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| More scenes from today's run |
When I arrived I saw that the right side of the lot was fairly full. There were lots of people with bikes and I wondered if there was a cycling event planned. I don't think it was anything that formal, although there were a lot more bikers on the trail than I usually see. Considering the density of cyclists on the path, along with many runners and a good number of walkers, I encountered few reckless riders.
With my headache and sinus pressure gone, I felt good energy along the trail and felt less intimidated than usual by the big hills. That isn't to say that I particularly enjoyed them. My plan was run 5K south and turn around at the 3.1 mile mark. It works for me to break a middle or long distance run into parts. For that same reason, I like to familiarize myself with a race course before running it for the first time. It's always valuable to understand the challenges of the course before you face them for real.
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| New Garmin Connect cadence graph |
I didn't dog the pace but I wasn't looking to simulate race conditions either. The purpose of this run was to get a 10K distance under my belt close to the real thing a week from Sunday. When I downloaded my Garmin after the run, I saw that they'd changed the data visualization on Connect and added a new metric: average stride length. Better still, the site has a pop-up that helps explain SPM and running dynamics. I felt good when I read this in the explanation:
"The data values in the green, blue, or purple zones are typical for more experienced or faster runners."
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| Good context on cadence |
Ideally, I'll see less green and more blue data points as I work to increase my cadence. Races tend to bring out our best performances (my recent history excepted) so I might even get myself into purple territory next week.
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Gorgeous pictures! Nothing like northeast fall weather and scenery for a runner. It sounds like you have the 10k distance covered. No problem.
ReplyDeleteYour Garmin is very positive and supportive! I like that. My watch usually just tells me how late I am or how bored. This morning it's telling me, "Why the heck aren't you running if you're up this early?? La-zy."
It was really nice to run among the changing leaves yesterday. Friendly runners on the path too.
DeleteMy Garmin is indeed positive and supportive but it often lies to me about my distance.But the cadence data is accurate and I think it will help me tune my performance.
If you're lazy than I'm a sloth. You may not have ended up running this AM, but I'm sure being at the NY marathon today will inspire you to get back to it tomorrow.