From Ironman World Champion Chris McCormack's blog on his website:
"Most of the time in training, especially when I go to a new town, I often test myself by doing the following.
I leave the hotel room for a run and check the clock before I leave. I then say to myself, okay, I am going to go and run for 1 hour. When I come back I try and see how close to that hour I actually was. I take no watch with me nor do I set any preconceived pace. I run freely and try and feel my way to understanding just how long I have been running by my surroundings and my pace and effort. Funnily enough, the fitter I get the better I am at getting very close to the hour. Early in the season I have gone for what I thought was an hour run and been only 45 minutes. Its crazy how skewed your perceived effort and time can be without the use of tools sometimes. Now I feel very confident I can nail a 10 mile run on feeling without relying on a Garmin to tell me and I could run 90 minutes pretty close to the minute without relying on a watch. It is something I enjoy testing myself with weekly and the more you do it, the greater you will start to feel this freedom of exercise and this tune that you have never paid attention to before. It is this understanding sometimes that will be your biggest strength in a race."
Great idea! I want to try this. It meshes very well with how I'm feeling after reading RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel (the review can be found on the front page of the BRS or at my own blog here). And taking advice from a two-time Ironman World Champ can't be a bad way to kick off my next training cycle, can it?
"Most of the time in training, especially when I go to a new town, I often test myself by doing the following.
I leave the hotel room for a run and check the clock before I leave. I then say to myself, okay, I am going to go and run for 1 hour. When I come back I try and see how close to that hour I actually was. I take no watch with me nor do I set any preconceived pace. I run freely and try and feel my way to understanding just how long I have been running by my surroundings and my pace and effort. Funnily enough, the fitter I get the better I am at getting very close to the hour. Early in the season I have gone for what I thought was an hour run and been only 45 minutes. Its crazy how skewed your perceived effort and time can be without the use of tools sometimes. Now I feel very confident I can nail a 10 mile run on feeling without relying on a Garmin to tell me and I could run 90 minutes pretty close to the minute without relying on a watch. It is something I enjoy testing myself with weekly and the more you do it, the greater you will start to feel this freedom of exercise and this tune that you have never paid attention to before. It is this understanding sometimes that will be your biggest strength in a race."
Great idea! I want to try this. It meshes very well with how I'm feeling after reading RUN: The Mind-Body Method of Running by Feel (the review can be found on the front page of the BRS or at my own blog here). And taking advice from a two-time Ironman World Champ can't be a bad way to kick off my next training cycle, can it?