Had a week off and did a lot of maffetone but since back to work can't run as much and really slowing down at my maffetone HR. So decided to get back to the really long runs. At least two hours twice a week plus the elliptical for two hours once a week. Then a short fast day.....

That was last week. So I did a 140 minute run but just did it at 2% incline the whole way instead of half/half 0%/4%. My weekly fast run wasn't good. 2 miles in 14:26. Previously did 2 in 14:35 but kept going for another half mile.

It could have been that I wasn't used to such a long run and it just took it out of me a bit... but no. I had my PR after a 3 hour and 40 minute run which was more than an hour longer than I'd ever done. No, what it was, was that I ran slower. With the 2% incline I started at 12 min/miles where previously I had been doing some 10min/mile running at the beginning.

So... I decided to do all my running at 0% incline (with a bit of elliptical thrown in). Was curious to see if my hard run would even be faster if I spent so much time running relatively faster (while still at maffetone). So instead of 30 to 40 minutes at 0% and then 30 to 40 minutes more at 4%. I started just going 60 to 100 minutes at 0%.

...and within a few runs I'm only going 10.5 minute miles and slower to beging with instead of 10min/miles for 3.5 or 4 miles.

Why?

Probably because I've suddenly doubled the amount of running I'm doing at 0% incline. NOT because I'm neglecting "hills".

Soooo.... Going to reduce the 0% incline running a bit and patiently increase it. But instead of incline running was thinking of spending the rest of the time on the elliptical. Although the elliptical may be breaking, resistance suddenly changed to very hard on me. Actually though that more simulates waking up stairs, which is more useful.

So whatever really. Being slower at 0% incline at maffetone is most likely just a short term effect because I'm suddenly doing twice as much of it. Surely? But getting rid of 0% incline running earlier, which caused my hard run to be much slower, was not a short term effect. I suspect that would have been a long term trend.

So it's complicated. And I could be quite wrong. Making sure to do a lot of time on the elliptical to simulate incline running just in case taking that away was actually the problem. It could be something entirely different I'm not thinking of though.

In other news I got a tennis ball machine which is kind of wonderful. I would have been a contender if I had one as a kid. (Or someone willing to do drills with me. Or if I had been smart enough to get someone else to do drills with me.) So I don't know. The negative is it takes a while to pick the balls back up and start over again. Getting a metal tennis basket, hopefully that will help.

Used it twice and already finally hitting a one hand topspin backhand decently well. Actually less unforced errors than my forehand. Also changed my backhand slice grip. Hitting it really well now.

Just about finished my second pond. Going to add hooks, etc and put a net entirely over the first. (Something seems to have killed three koi, would be nice to not worry about such things.)

Haven't played cello at all for a long time. Any day now going to get back to it...

Reading The Magician's Land by Lev Grossman. Book three of Magicians trilogy. He's underrated. Really not much I can criticize, like his stuff a lot. Underrated because it's too intelligent. It's not that intelligent, but fantasy fiction has got the bar very low these days.