So yesterday I publicly stated that I was going to run for 2 miles without stopping. That would be 0.9 miles further than I have run without stopping during this training. I'm not sure what possessed me to do such a thing, but I did it nonetheless. And it helped! During my run I kept thinking "you can't stop, you told everyone you were going to do this, now do this!"
I am happy to report that I ran the 2 miles without stopping! As soon as Nike+ girl said "2 miles completed", I let out a sigh of relief and started to walk. Something happened during that walk though; 30 seconds in I thought "why are you walking......move your legs and RUN!"
I had just run 2 miles of a 3 mile run without walking, why not just keep running and see how far I could go? So after 1 minute of walking, I began to run again. I made it to the 3 mile mark before cooling down with a walk.
Mentally this felt really good. Physically this was a nightmare. My average pace of 14'35" was faster than normal, which isn't surprising. What surprised me is that it wasn't drastically different than when I run for 10+ minutes and walk for 2-3 minutes. This, coupled with the fact that I felt like my legs were going to fall smooth off, tells me something. I need to stick with the run/walk thingy-ma-jig until I get stronger. The last time I ran 3 miles was 9/25/2013, where I ran 17 minutes and walked 3 minutes until I finished. My average for this run was 14'53", and let me tell you, it felt way easier than last night where I decided I was Lolo Jones and ran all but 1 minute of my 3 mile run. Running the whole thing (less one minute) only took 18 seconds off my average and I felt like poop when I was done. I think I will be sticking with the run/walk method from now on to save my legs, especially for long runs. It was nice to prove to myself that I could do it though.
It's funny how you learn something from each run. Did I prove to myself that I could run 2 miles straight without walking? YES! Do I want to do it again anytime soon? NO!
MIND OVER MATTER
My name is Bobby and I'm a member of the Runners World Forum. I just wanted to let you know that my first post was a question on something running related and I was called "stupid" for doing something that I was ignorant about. Didn't sit well with me, but I stuck around. The forum is a wealth of knowledge for us newbies and you shouldn't let some ruin your experience. Come back and try again sometime. The more you hang out the more you will see that it IS a community of runners looking to help/encourage each other. True, there are some that need to take some classes on class, but overall they are great people. Hope to see you around again!!
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment Bobby. It makes me feel a tad better knowing that these are just classless people and I was not being targeted. Sounds like they don't really like welcoming people into their "community", at least not these particular members.
ReplyDeleteI wish I could tell you that I'm going to stick around, but I can't deal with that type of negativity, nor do I need it in my life. I've got goals to reach and Runners World is not goig to help get me there.
Thanks again for the comment. I really do appreciate it!