The best thing about today's run was the cold shower when I got home. That's what I thought at the time, anyway. When I realized I had increased my total distance to 2.64 miles and only added 9 seconds to my time I felt a little better about it. That pushed my pace up to 12:26/mile. It was another of those small victories.
I decided last night as I went to sleep that I was going to push myself a little harder today. I wanted to average 12:30/mile. I started off pretty fast and by the end of the first 3 minutes I realized that I had probably started off too fast. I was winded but managed to maintained a fast walk through the 90 second walk break the couch to 5k agenda called for today. The next 5 minutes were tough. I kept up what I felt was a decent pace but my body was tired at the end of the 5 minutes and I found myself wondering if I would make it through the next half of the run as it is written in the program. The 2.5 minute walk flew by and I was still breathing pretty hard when it was time to start the next 3 minute run. I made it through, but had serious doubts about the next 5 minute run. At this point it became a serious battle of mind over matter. I knew I could make my body do it, but I found myself wondering if it was worth it. In the end, mind won the battle and I pushed out the last 5 minutes. I started out pretty slow and tried to increase my pace as I neared the 5 minute mark. I didn't have anything left at the end. I was spent, a little frustrated, but I know I'm stronger for it.
Lesson learned: start out slow and push harder at the end. I knew that, but I wanted to change things up today to see how it went. Still, I'm pleased that I broke through that 12:30 barrier that I haven't seen since week 2. I'm going to try to keep the pace up on Friday, but I'll probably try to save some for the second half instead of using myself up in the first half.
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