I knew this would be a challenge, regardless if I ran a mile every day or made it more like a training cycle, but so far it's been worth the chaos of scheduling, trying to fit in at least that mile, and making use of time and good weather! It's also allowed me to see how my legs react when they're tired - the first three days were pretty rough (Day 3 in particular), but days 4 and 5 turned out to be spectacular! Tired legs ain't got nothin' on me! This is going to be great practice and testing for running on tired legs so I know where I've got to do some work before Ragnar.
So here you go... the Week 1 recap:
Monday, May 28: 2.28 mi/10:47 pace
After a fabulously long, exciting weekend, this was a little rougher than I anticipated. Not to mention that this was actually already day 3 in a row (5K, then a walk/jog through Piedmont), so my legs were already feeling heavy given the otherwise recent lack of activity. But I did it, and really was excited to get going on this challenge!
Tuesday, May 29: 2.01 mi/10:44 pace
Still super heavy legs -- I remember saying aloud to myself during this run that while the minimum is to run at least 1 mile a day, I wanted to run at least 2. So I did this to 2.01 and called it over. Please note my lack of following said rule ... tomorrow! :)
Wednesday, May 30: 1.52 mi/10:24 pace
Oh, hey heavy legs! This run was torture and was not feeling it at all. Trucked along, made it as far as I could/managed, and headed straight home. Whew, tough one! But still... I did it! Day 3, check!
Thursday, May 31: 3.89 mi/11:56 pace
Molly and I ran to the dog park, where she played for an hour and then we jogged home. I think she was ready to pass out and slept pretty good that night! I enjoyed it -- it was super muggy that evening, but it was nice to be super active, and get Molly uber tired. Winning all around!
Friday, June 1: 1.37 mi/9:28 pace
I had the plan to get in a long run on Saturday, so wanted to make sure I didn't exhaust myself too much with my Friday run! Finally made it up to run in the morning and kick-start my day with a nice, short burst of energy. I attempted a few 200 yd. sprints, just to get that heart rate up and my legs working. Overall, turned into an awesome pace, I was super excited; now to only convince my body to do it further than just over a mile. But you gotta start somewhere, right?
Saturday, June 2: 5.43 mi/9:37 pace
I rolled out of bed later than I wanted to on Saturday, but wolfed down a granola bar, grabbed my hand-held and got out the door while it was still nice out (gorgeous morning in town!). I set out on my favorite long-run loop, the "big block" up and around towards our dog park and back home. The last two miles are pretty much downhill, which is also a nice boost (yeah, check out those splits dude!) but also requires a little bit of stamina to finish the stretch. This was my first mid-distance run with an under 10" pace... ever. Excited, to say the least!
Sunday, June 3: 1.37 mi/9:20 pace
Sunday came and went before I realized the day was almost over! Oops! I didn't get out for this run until almost 8:30 pm, which turns out is a decent time here in summer to get outside (noted). I decided that I'd just squeeze in the same route I did on Friday, enough to make it count but push myself appropriately. I wanted to push myself more than Friday, just to see what I thought I could really do, and boom! There it is. I cut 13 seconds off Friday's time and dropped my pace enough for a really happy ending to the first week!
 |
| Pretty stoked! Not a bad first week back on the horse. |
My legs cooperated overall quite well this week. I only felt the need to ice once (after Day 3), but I know I definitely need to be stretching more than I am. On to Week 2. Goals are to make another 17+ mi week, make sure I'm stretching every day, get in the mindset of getting ready to run while on vacation the next week, and making it all count for another week in a row. Here we go!
How did you do on Week 1? Goals for Week 2?
No comments:
Post a Comment