PLANNING THE WEEK AHEAD

   Yesterday saw a change to the Monday easy 6 with a switch of the run from the road to the trail;  having run 14 mile on an undulating road course the previous day.  The rest of the week would also have to be adjusted,  bearing in mind the intention to race on Sunday.  Friday's track session will be brought forward to Wednesday and today's hill session was changed to a steady 8, road and trail.  Then steady Thursday, easy Friday, easy Saturday, race Sunday...........sounds like a plan!!
   Today when we plan and have intentions to run definitive distances it's comparatively simple.  Using
http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/  planning the exact distance is easy to do even if the run is a trail run. The only problem is a trail run that takes the runner through a forest or wood and the path can't be traced on the screen.  Then if you can afford a Garmin or similar you do the planned run and generally find your planned route is usually pretty accurate.  I was asked last week how did we go before computerisation.  Well, we knew our pace on measured road reps or on the track but for "steady" runs we just divided the total time by what we thought was a current fitness pace for such runs.....approx. 1.30 mins. slower than race pace.....
e.g. if 49 minutes at 7 minute....7 mile.  Fair enough but I would say in retrospect that we didn't allow for the much slower pace we run at when offroad and on undulating courses.
   Having said all that and just in case you think that computer monitoring of training runs is a 21st century phenomenon check out this
                                                      PUMA RS COMPUTER SHOE. 

It contained a custom-designed computer chip built into its heel which recorded the run, then communicated the results to Apple Commodore or IBM PC.  A software program included with the shoe automatically calculated time, distance and calories expended.  Not a great shoe for playing 5 a side football in.........you couldn't easily back heel could you?

                                  Year of its launch?.....................................1986 !!