Wednesday, February 22, 2012

What Not To Wear (Couch to 5K: W3D2)

I think it's safe to say that I am starting to form a running habit. There must be something in the way that this program was designed that it sucks you in and keeps you motivated to move forward. It felt like a VERY long 48 hours from my last run to this one...I almost ran yesterday just for fun!

Today's program was a repeat of Monday's. I was hoping that I'd find the 3 minute run intervals at least SLIGHTLY easier than they were on Monday. It was beautiful and sunny (again!) this morning and I was in a bit of a quandary about what to wear. The temperature seemed similar to what it was on Monday when I overheated and had to remove my windbreaker, so I made the (wrong) decision to leave my windbreaker at home today. I did warm up eventually, but the first 10 minutes were mighty chilly.

As the dreaded first 3 minute running interval approached, I reminded myself to try to adjust my pace a little to see if that made the interval a little easier. I noticed on Monday that I started the 3 minute segment with a burst of energy and then had to drastically slow my pace down to make it through the full 3 minutes. Since I am now a little more familiar with the running trail, I made a mental note of a point up ahead on the trail and told myself not to check the stopwatch until I reached that point. (Which turned out to be 2:05 on the first interval, 2:13 on the second). The first "long" run seemed to be a little easier than I remembered on Monday, but the second one was a little more challenging. My knee was in a mood again, so I really had to slow my pace down to make it a little happier.

At some point during the first running interval, my worst fear was finally realized. Up ahead on the trail, I saw someone I knew! Do I keep my head up and nod as I ran past or avoid eye contact and hope she didn't recognize me? I this point I was hoping that I looked more like this:









Even though my brain was telling me it was more likely that I looked like this:












All my worrying ended up being for nothing, however, because by the time I passed her, she was bent over picking up dog crap. NO matter how "Homer Simpson-y" I looked, at least I wasn't doing THAT!

But I digress.....

I had planned to add an extra 90s run/90s walk and 3 min run/3 min walk interval at the end of today's run because, to me, this week's program seems kind of short. My knee let me know, shortly into the 90 second run, that this was a bad idea. I finished with a 5 minute cool down walk, as usual, and was quite glad to be home. At this point, I'm thinking I may end up needing to repeat this week before I am ready to progress to the week 4 schedule (there are two 5-minute intervals in there! GASP!) We'll see how I feel on Friday!

In spite of today's difficulties (or, perhaps, because of them) I am looking forward to it!

J :)

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