On Monday, my morning that I focus on improving my speed, I set out to try a very ambitious goal of a 8 minute mile. Almost unbelievably... I did it! I ran my first mile of the morning with a time of 7:59.
However... that exhausted me so much that I had to walk for a bit... and then when I ran the rest of the way home it wasn't even another mile, and the .85 of a mile that I did run I ran it slow... taking about 9 minutes to do so.
So not quite a crowning victory, since as Blake so kindly pointed out, my average was actually slower than previous weeks when you include my second very slow mile.
I am thankful for this weekend's clock change and getting to run in light and dawn again, but there is a negative that came with this... it is very chilly in the mornings these days. We are talking 50 or below. Even with running, I am too cold in my normal workout gear and have been running with a sweatshirt on... and still being a little cold.
I am finding that I have been preferring my phone over my ipod lately because of Pandora. With running three days a week, I am somewhat tired of everything on my running mix, and I like the variety that comes from Pandora. There is a downside though that since Pandora needs internet, if I run through a section that there is no signal, the song cuts out and then takes a while to load again. The upside of my phone is that I can set my running app to tell me every time I hit a mile, or how far and how fast I have run every two minutes (or one minute, etc.).
On Friday, I made another personal record with running 3 miles in 27 minutes and 30 seconds. To my memory, my fastest time when I was running cross country was 25 minutes (maybe 24), and running three miles at just over 9 minutes is a good step in the right direction.
I'm considering signing up and running a 10k in March... but I am nervous. In some ways, I think that it is only a little over 6 miles, but then I look at the training schedules for those, and all of them have me regularly running 4 or 5 miles to get ready for the 6. Right now, my three mile Fridays are a push for me, and I am ready to be done way before the three miles. On the other hand, when I had decided to run in the first place, everything said that it was really important to set goals and milestones for yourself to keep you running and motivated. Running a race would do that, and it totally makes sense that the runs during the week have to be longer for that to work too.
Also causing me to hesitate is the uncertainty about our adoption. What if we are in Ghana in March, what if our child comes home in March... on the other hand, we could not even have a call yet, and is it right to wait or hold back on goals just because of a huge gaping unknown?
I want to stay healthy, and I want to stay in shape, and I really want to keep running. More than any gym regimen that I have ever done, I want to keep getting better and continuing to run. To do this, I think I need more distinct training goals than just "get faster."
I need encouragement... I need a push, a shove, a resounding chorus that says that says that I have all of December, January and February to get ready for the run in March. I need to believe that I can do this. And maybe, just maybe with enough encouragement, I will actually click the button to sign up for that race...
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