On today's agenda was 20 minutes of continuous running. I didn't sleep well last night. I don't know if it was the large meal of fried catfish and hush puppies I had for dinner, the slice of strawberry pie I had right before bedtime, or the anticipation of the 20 minutes I was slated to run this morning that kept me awake. It was probably a combination of all three.
The alarm went off at quarter til six as it always does on my running days. I dragged myself out of bed and through my morning routine of getting ready to drive to the park, trying to keep a positive mental attitude. When I arrived at the lake it was 66 degrees, the sun was just starting to rise over the trees on the east end of the lake, and the geese were, well, being geese.
I got out of the car, stretched, did my five minute warm up walk, then stretched some more. As much as I hate it, I've found that stretching really makes a difference. I can feel the difference in my stride when I'm properly stretched and I'm hopefully preventing any further knee pain by keeping my hamstrings and quads good and loose. I'm spending about 3 minutes stretching before my walk, a good 5 minutes stretching between my warm up walk and the start of my run, then another 3 or so at the end.
After stretching, I took off at what felt like a very slow pace. I had no goals this morning other than to finish the 20 minutes without having to stop for a break. 20 minutes without walking would be victory enough. I mentally noted a point where I'm usually around the halfway mark of my run. That was the point to which I decided to run before looking at the stop watch to see if it was time to turn around. I made it to that point, looked at the watch and I had been running for 10 minutes and 24 seconds. I was glad to see that I was past the halfway point. I turned around knowing that I had just run longer than I had ever run before, and that I was about to go another 10 minutes on top of that. It was a good feeling, but I still didn't know if I was going to be able to make it the full 20.
Oddly, the second half of my run seemed to go by faster than the first half. I kept having to hold myself back from trying to run faster. I know I was running faster anyway. By the 15 minute mark I was breathing harder and having to work harder to keep my lungs on pace with my legs. I found myself looking at the watch more often, wondering how much longer. I looked at the watch and noticed I had 3 minutes left. I told myself I wouldn't look back at it until I was to the point where I had started running. For whatever reason, I looked at it again before I got there and only had one minute left to go. I was really feeling it at this point, but I was pretty excited to know that I was going to make it, so I raised my arms in the air like a complete nutcase and ran like that for a few seconds. It felt good. I brought my arms back down and pushed as hard as I could to the picnic table where I stretch. I looked at the watch when I got there and it read 20:24. I was gasping for breath, my legs were quivering beneath me, and I was dripping with sweat, but I had just run a full 20 minutes plus some.
Needless to say, I'm pretty proud of myself. Just a few weeks ago I remember thinking 3 minutes was going to be tough. I also remember looking ahead and thinking W5D3 would be the make it or break it run. Well, I made it. I'm over halfway through the program and I'm really looking forward to increasing my mileage over the next few weeks.
The stats: according to mapmyrun I did 2.34 miles including my warm up and cool down walks. It took a total of 30:24 for a pace of 12:59. I'm estimating I ran a total of 1.65 miles in 20:24 for a running pace of 12:22, which puts my walking pace at 14:30. I've definitely slowed some since the beginning of the program, but I'm less worried about pace than I am being able to know I can run a full 30 minutes by the time the program is finished.
Next up, the start of week 6. It sounds pretty easy. The program calls for run 5, walk 3, run 8, walk 3, run 5. That's only 18 minutes of total running with walking breaks. Should be a breeze. Famous last words?
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