And the credit goes to...

Mystery Coach!

Mike pointed out that the links I was referring to in my previous post are both the work of "Mystery Coach" who is a co-author on his blog.

Thanks Mike for the clarification and big 'gomenasai' to the coach for having overseen such important fact.

And in true coach fashion the mysterious man made his appearance on my blog with a very helpful comment:

"Most runners miss this line "making sure that you can recover from the effort". To me it sounds like you are just a bit above your steady state. Try backing off 15-20 seconds per mile (you'll find you'll gain this back by the end of experiment). Remember you're trying to find your true steady state not force yourself into one."

It looks like I got it a little wrong in the beginning when I read here:

"To find your base level; for the next 21-28 days run 7 miles a day over the same course as fast as you can."

That's what I did but the important point I think I missed is that 'true steady state' does not mean to be wasted at the end of the test. The test only finishes and should be followed by the 'Stamina Build up'. The way I executed the test up until now would have made me need a 1-2 week recovery break after completion. I guess in theory 'steady state' means you should be able to repeat this for much longer than the 3-4 test weeks.

The difference lies in 'forced' vs. 'true' steady state. I am actually amazed by the fact that I am able to force the current level of running onto myself. More than once I have broken my old 10k PB during these runs. Granted, it's not the nature of the test I just learned but this strength will definitely come in handy in race situations - I hope.

Hey, how lucky am I? I started this blog only two days ago and got already an invaluable piece of advice from somebody somewhere on this planet! Friedman is right: The World Is Flat!

Today is day number 10 into the test for me and pacing down a little will make it almost feel like a recovery run.