Thinking About the Value of Practice for Proficiency!

Being a music teacher, I understand the value of consistent practice as one prepares for a performance. You must practice, no matter how you feel on a given day and you must strive to perform the music correctly and at the appropriate tempo. Through the years I've learned that when students walk into the classroom, they can control the atmosphere in negative and positive ways if you will let them.

The key, of course, is to enable the most positive atmosphere to prevail and to show the students the value of consistent efforts toward reaching a goal.

Musicians and runners want to work more on the things we do best, but we will never improve unless we challenge ourselves by working on the difficult things.

Speed work is challenging, but with consistent effort, the rewards should be fantastic. When I achieve my goals, it will be like a great musical performance in which I perform the most challenging passages with ease because of my faithful practice sessions!

I felt pretty good about my speed work this morning. Running the 1200 meters in the middle was quite the challenge.It really stressed my body!

I believe that I had a pretty good workout, although I was disappointed in my final 400. I suppose that the lesson here is to accept what your body can do at the time. With that in mind, this was a very good workout.

1x400@2:20 (5 seconds too slow)
1x800@4:28 (On Pace!!)
1x1200@7:13 (28 seconds too slow)
1x800@444 (14 seconds too slow)
1x400@2:36 (22 seconds too slow)

I was only 1 minute and 3 seconds off pace for overall performance. This should pay off!! Rest tomorrow!

Getting ready to Up the Pace

For the past two days, I've run 9 miles at an easy pace. This included a 5 miler on monday and a 4 miler this morning. Prior to each run, I ran/walked a mile with Pat Schmidt, my wife! She's trying to build an aerobic base.

My 5 miler included ten minutes at a tempo run speed in the middle (that's 10:15 per mile). I felt like I could run faster, but I held to the recommendations of the McMillan Running Calculator. I felt very positive following this run, because the Temperature was rising and I easily maintained my pace!

This morning's 4 miler was run at a very easy pace of 11:44. I was once again in the parameters of the McMillan running Calculator's recommendations. I felt like I could run faster, but I deliberately held back knowing that I will be doing speed work tomorrow morning. So...tomorrow I shall see If I can build some speed on the track!!