OK, here is the background. I am highly motivated to work on my running this winter. I need to get my 10k time way down. So Nationals are over. I took a week off to rest. During that time I consulted our XC track coach and my BIL who is a big time runner as to the best plan of attack. They both gave me the same answer.

Use October, November and December to work on building my endurance. Two long slow runs a week, on short tempo run. A long slow run is actually humerous to me, because I am already pretty slow to begin with. They threw out some big numbers. I said...ahhh...no. I am going to take my longest runs from last season( which were not that long) and add 5 mins to start. Then add five mins every two weeks. All on the trails.

So I start last week. Tuesday. 50 mins. Slowed down my pace by about 1.5 mins per mile. This is harder than I thought.

Thursday - 20 min tempo run

Saturday 35 min easy run, I was pressed for time.

I also rode twice last week.

So today I go out to do my 50 min easy trail run again and everything hurts. My knees were killing me. It actually hurts me to run slow.

Is this possible? I have run pain free for almost two straight years. Why does this slow running hurt so much

Is it possible that I am changing my stride to slow down?

I think I may be better off doing a 5/1 run walk and running a little faster.

What gives?

Ruth