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Thursday, January 10, 2008

Running on Empty


I had good luck early in my running with heading out in the morning on an empty stomach. Found the energy somewhere and managed to get through the runs. In fact I'd even read that it can be beneficial... after a good night's sleep, your glycogen stores are drained, so your energy is coming entirely from fat!

Up at 5.30, running by 5.45, showering by 6.30... Perfect.

Tried it today for the first time since before Christmas. WOW. What a surprise. I had no pace... was supposed to do a 6K tempo run, which for me means running at about 5:20/km... I couldn't touch it, was closer to 5:45/km or slower, almost LSD pace.

Lesson learned. Body needs fuel. I'll be taking a bottle of Gatorade to make up for my depleted glycogen from a good night's sleep. Might scarf down a granola bar or something too.

I may not burn as much fat as I could, but if I can't run at a higher intensity I might as well stay in bed.


3 comments:

Jennifer said...

Jon-
Your tempo pace is 5:20, and your LSD pace is 5:45? That seems to me to be too fast. My paces/race times are similar to yours; tempo pace is the same, but LSD pace is 6:10-6:40.

Good luck with your goals. I'll be following along since we seem to be similar in fitness levels.

Jon P said...

Hi Jennifer... my pace is almost identical to yours. :)

My Tempo is 5:10 to 5:23. My LSD pace is actually 6:00-6:35.

I used:
http://www.mcmillanrunning.com/mcmillanrunningcalculator.htm

Good luck to you as well!

Jennifer said...

Ah, that's fine. I just thought if you were actually trying to do your easy runs too fast, it might be impacting how your workouts feel.

I look forward to following your progress and I'll try to catch up a bit on where you are. Come visit my blog sometime, too. I've just started it, and I plan to post to it regularly.