The weather was almost perfect for this morning's run. I arrived at the park and watched the fog slowly rise off the lake as I did my 5 minute warm up walk. On today's agenda was 10 minutes of running, 3 minutes of walking, followed by 10 more minutes of running. After stretching with the ducks I began my first segment of 10 minutes running. I started out fast, tried to slow down, sped up again and just went with it. I definitely pushed myself a little harder in the first 10 than I probably should have, but going fast felt good, so I just pretended I didn't have to run another 10 minutes and kept up the pace that felt most natural.
I was quite winded when it was time for the 3 minute walk but after 3 minutes I had caught my breath and I felt as ready as I was going to feel to run again. As I started to run I felt a little stiffness and pain in my left knee, but nothing close to what I felt before I had to take a week off to rest. I'm pretty sure I have iliotibial band syndrome. It's not really an injury, it's just an irritation of the iliotibial band caused by an increase in activity. The only cure is rest. As that is not really an option right now, I've chosen to treat it with NSAIDs and ice. I probably will take the next two days off to rest and then pick back up on Friday with W6D3.
Back to the run, I was almost immediately aware that I had pushed too hard in the first 10 minutes as I kept having to tell myself "I'll make it to 5 minutes and take a short walk break". When I made it to 5 minutes, I told myself I'd make it to 8. Once I made it to 8 I just toughed it out and ran through to the 10 minute mark, asking God for His help the whole way. I know my second half was slower than my first half by about 25 seconds but I'm not too disappointed because:
1. I got out of bed and ran this morning
2. I finished the run as written
3. My overall pace was better than my last run
The stats: I covered the same distance this morning as I did W6D1 at 2.69 miles. I did it in 33:25 and increased my pace to 12:25/mile which improved my average pace over the course of C25K to 12:58/mile.
Next up: 25 continuous minutes Friday morning. The key will be pacing myself.
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