One way to make the miles go by faster

Or, rather, seemingly go by faster.

Last week, one of my morning runs was “easy-steady and finishing with 4x5 sets of 10 sec strides.” For fun and something different, I decided to do the strides spread out throughout the run, rather than at the end, as follows:

Mile 1 - Warm up

Mile 2 – Easy-steady

Miles 3 to 6 – Easy-steady with 10 sec stride every 0.2 mile

Last half mile – Easy-steady

Miles 3-6 are basically fartlek but regular and rhythmic. For every 0.2 mile, the beginning 10 sec stride covers ~0.03 mile, with the remaining 0.17 mile at the easy-steady pace. Just like a metronome. Well, at least for the first 2 miles or so (Miles 3 and 4).

Initially, I’d check my watch at just about the end of each 0.2 mile and get ready for the next 10 sec stride. But, toward the end of Mile 5, as my legs tired, the next 0.2 mile seemed to come up faster and faster. What, time for another 10-sec stride?! Miles 5-6 were thus not quite as rhythmic, as I kept being late to the beat (top pace plot of the following figure).

Of course, I was not actually going faster--my pace was gradually slowing, though still mostly even. But, because I was paying attention to my legs wanting more time to recover, the 0.17 mile after each stride seemed to fly by. It’s another example of the fascinating mental aspects of (especially long-distance) running. Other than that, however, is it useful practically for, say, toward the end of a race or long training run that I’m struggling to finish? I’d need to experiment and find out. But, training to be able to speed up for 10 seconds or 20 seconds or more, especially when the legs are tired, is obviously good to do. This week, I did the same run, and the latter miles with the strides were already more rhythmic (bottom pace plot of the above figure). Or, perhaps, I was just paying more attention to maintaining the beat, instead of the complaining legs.