When I last posted about my running, I was a bit discouraged. I was slow; it was hard, wah, wah, wah. A couple days after I wrote that entry, I went for my next run, and I was still slow and it was still hard. I had to break out the Powersong and still only managed a 12:16 average pace. I felt like I was floundering. It helped not at all that my right leg has been giving me trouble again, with pain down the outside and a foot that starts to go numb. Bah.
Then I found Jeff Galloway’s 5K Training Schedule, which calls for 30 minute runs during the week (versus the 40-42 minute ones I’ve been doing) and encourages walk breaks (versus my trying to push myself to longer and longer running intervals and feeling bad when I couldn’t manage them). Next time out, I did 30 minutes and tried to stick to a one minute walking/four minute running pattern. My average pace: 11:36, a 40-second per mile improvement. I was sold. I ordered his book the very next day. Who knows–this may even get me to start cross-training.
I’ve done two workouts so far this week. Neither was as fast as that 11:36 pace but both were better than those first few post-vacation runs at around twelve minutes average including walk breaks despite varying conditions. Monday night it was warm and sunny and many, many people were out and about, walking, riding bikes, pushing strollers–so many that I felt just a bit resentful. Where were these people all winter? What right did they have to be using my outside now that it was pleasant, the outside I’d earned by slogging along through cold and winter weather advisories? (I know, irrational.) Last night, it was snowing and very windy. I saw only one couple out, and they looked to be walking home from the store rather than just out for an amble.
I signed up for the race later this month that I was considering, so now I really have to keep at it. I had hoped to run the entire 5K the next time I did one, but I’m not going to push it. Even entering a race wasn’t even something I would have considered a year ago at this time, so just finishing is fine.
Powered by WordPress