Week #3 went well with some quite decent weather for this time of the year. My long run for that week was a 6 miler and I was quite satisfied as my pace was 9:37/minute. Still, I didn't pace the entire run quite as well as I would have liked. I can feel myself constantly improving in strength and endurance and that's a great feeling.
Week #4 started out OK with a fairly warm Tuesday 3 mile run but then our temps dropped and I had to bundle up for the Thursday and Friday runs. Thursday was a 4 mile pace run which means that you run at the pace that you intend to run the race in. I'm targeting somewhere between 8:45 - 9:00 minutes/mile. I actually ran my 5 mile long run on Saturday 3/7 at a faster pace than I intended to. It's a little more difficult to hold back on the pace as I still have a difficult time considering a 5 mile run as a long run. Still, I think my pace was in line with the plan to run 30 to 90 seconds/mile slower than my race pace goal. My 4 mile was around 9:30 min/mile and my race pace goal is between 8:45-9:00 min/mile. I ran Wednesday's pace run at 9:00 min/mile which is on the high end so I wasn't terribly happy about it but I ran a bit faster at the beginning, I think because it was cold, dreary and rainy and I just wanted to get it over with so that probably slowed me a bit in the second half of the run. Still, not so bad. Today's long run was a 7 miler and it was great weather to run in. Somewhere near 70 degrees and a nice breeze. I'm supposed to target 30 - 90 seconds per mile over the pace that I plan to run in the race and my 7 mile run today was at 9:00 min/mile and I paced it very well so I was extremely happy with it.
In other running news, my heel pain was virtually gone this week and definitely did not show up at all on my long run today so the Brooks Adrenaline are doing the trick. I think that they are forcing me to land more on the forefoot and that is what is helping. Plus, there is just so much spring to these shoes. But that's a subject for a separate post.
Now, to continue with a review of how I got started running and what I've learned through the past few years. In the last blog post, I talked about the importance of just getting started. Once you get started, no matter how slow you start, stay consistent and the improvement will be rapid.
In this post, I want to talk about hitting mental milestones and how it bolsters not only your running confidence but also your confidence about life in general.
During my marathon training in the summer of 2012, I remember looking at some of the distances on the training schedule and thinking, "That's crazy. I can't even imagine running that far." When you've never done that before, it's kind of in the back of your mind that maybe it's not even really possible. You think, "Sure, many other people have done it, but can I really do it? The long distances seem so monumental when you haven't been there before. I had run off an on (mostly off) over the previous 20 years but it had been since 1996 that I had run any distance longer than 2 miles. I had run between 5 & 6 milers back then but the memory of that experience seemed almost unreal to me 17 years later in 2012.
So, on June 30, 2012, I was somewhat nervous about the 7 mile run that was on the training schedule for that day. This would be the longest distance that I had ever run in a single outing. Nevertheless, I got out there, went slow, and completed 7.31 miles that day. I remember being so elated that I had run 7 miles. I had a huge feeling of accomplishment and felt like if I could do this thing that had seemed virtually impossible to me, then I could do so many other things in life that had previously seemed far beyond my capabilities. That's part of what long distance running does for you: It teaches you that you are capable of far more than you ever thought you were. I can't overstate how greatly this affected my outlook on the other endeavors in my life. I mean, that's what a lot of life is about, right? Just putting one foot in front of the other. Repeat, repeat, repeat, etc. Just focusing on one step at a time and believing that you can make it.
After that first 7 miler, every time I hit another mental milestone, it bolstered my confidence a little bit more. 10 miles. 12 miles. Half marathon (13.1 miles), 15 miles. 20 miles! Etc. It definitely psychologically changed my outlook on life.
Okay, so that's it for this entry.
Except for the "Song of the Run"
My phone has "chosen" a lot of slow tempo songs lately while I'm running so there were a lot of slower songs on Saturday's 7 mile run.
Here is one that I hadn't heard in a while but love:
"Paranoid Android" by Radiohead:
More to come next week in my Training Week 5 entry.
Peace My Fellow Runners!
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