Issue 388 - More Speed Less Haste

Hi,
I hope everything is well where you are.

I had an interesting week with my marathon training.
For my long run last week, 9 miles, I didn't feel quite on top if it right from the beginning.
My thighs felt heavy for some reason, and despite imagining it would feel better as I got into the run, I just didn't seem to get into it.

There were many times when I thought 'Ohh I could just stop', but I gave myself a stern talking to, and decided to get to the end, no matter what the time, as I could tell my lethargy wasn't an injury type strain.
In the end I did 6 minutes outside my schedule.

I had a think about what the cause might have been , but just put it down to an off day.
'Off days' occur to us all in whatever line, and it's important not to give them more importance than they deserve!

During the week I thought I would try something different in my 3 mile sessions.
For the first one, I put short sprints in.
I guess they must have been about 200 metres at a time.
It felt good to be flying, er ok, make that trundling along at full pelt.
At the end of 3 miles though, my overall time was only slightly faster, but had needed a huge increase in effort...

Hmm, my quest for an easy life kicked in, and it occured to me that if a huge increase in effort results in only a small time benefit, then logically I could make a noticable reduction in effort, and the time loss would only be small!

So for the 2nd 3 mile session I deliberately went slower in the running stints than I ever had before, lower leg lift, shorter stride.
Sure enough, I felt better for it, and only lost a small amount of time.

Ah Ha!

So for yesterday's 10 miler, I decided I would stick to this plan rigidly, and see what happened.
My target time was 2 hours dead, and when I go to the end, my time was 1 hour 58!

More haste, less speed as my mother would say.
Hang on, was it more speed less haste?

Anyway you get the idea, the goal can often be achieved quicker by going at a more sensible sustainable pace.

Regarding my marathon, all this effort I'm putting in is for one event 6 months away, and since it's now 6 months to the race this week, Apr 22nd 2007, I'm relaunching the sponsorship site.

There are 2 main points to note.
The first is that 100% of your donation goes to charity.
I'm not seeking to make a penny profit from it.

The second thing, is that you get to choose the charity!
When I previously chose MIND, the UK mental health charity, people told me they didn't know enough about the charity.
So here's the thing, if I asked you what your favourite charity was, what would you say?
It could be a domestic charity for you country, or a local charity for your town.
It could be an international charity.
It could to do with animals, children, mentally ill, homeless, etc, etc.
It doesn't matter what it is, as long as it's an officially registered charity, it'll do!

Then just decided how much you would sponsor me for my marathon, to go towards that charity - then you just hit the donate button!

If you run a newsletter or support a particular charity, get your readers to sponsor me, and tell them to pick the charity you are helping!

Hopefully you can see the appeal - you get to support me in my marathon to mark turning 40, plus support your favourtite charity at the same time.

If you can't decide on a charity, or aren't bothered, then say so, and it will go to my personal choice, MIND.

Go and look at the site, you can download my free book!
http://www.thegreatgordinomarathon.com

Ok, that's it for today, could you do with more speed, less haste (possibly less speed, more haste)
Have a good week.

'Til Next Time,
Health and Happiness,
Gordon
I'll help grab a grand a month at:
http://www.thegrabagrandclub.com