…starting to enjoy running. I didn’t believe, even after running three 5K’s now, that I would ever enjoy running. I’ve never been good at it, and even during my last major weight loss (when I was down to almost 200 pounds), I only tolerated it. During that time as well, I still struggled to finish three miles. I think part of this is coming from how I’m beginning to structure my workouts, which is increasing my level of fitness pretty rapidly. My current plan looks something like this:
Workout Schedule
While this looks like I don’t have a rest day in there, Monday is actually a rest day. I work what is known as a Mid Line at work, so on Mondays I work a day shift, have eight hours off, then return to work for a graveyard shift. My Sunday work out is in the morning, Monday day I take off, and then workout around 1AM Tuesday, so I actually have all Monday off.
Where am I going with this? So yesterday I take off for my ‘long run’ (yes this is warm up for most seasoned triathletes, but I’m still slow and fat remember), and noticed several things. This was the third time I’ve left the iPhone at home (no music), and I kinda like running sans music. It was hard the first couple times as I was bored and had nothing to set my pace off of, but this last time I felt more in tune with my body mechanics (not just pounding away mindlessly) and started to notice/enjoy the scenery. This helped a couple of times when my heart rate climbed up (~180) during hills, resulting in me going into panic mode and my from going to hell. I was able to immediately notice this and slowed up, got my form back, and the HR started to drop. No pain!
Here are the stats…
Also, about a mile in my HR was still in the 140′s-150′s (low for me during a run), I felt at ease, and was able to actually think and ponder life. Usually I’m so consumed with just the task of running that all I can think about is not dying. I was able to think and plan out some wedding stuff, think about goals/rewards I’m going to set for myself, projects for the truck, all kinds of things. I didn’t even know thinking and running at the same time was possible.
Got to the third hill in my run (my nemesis), and sure enough my HR spiked, form went to hell, but with the help of the Garmin, I got it back under control and away I went. I was feeling pretty good at this point, so I decided to up the length over my last long run which was 3.5 miles. I added some distance by turning down small side streets and running the cola sacs. Got back to my neighborhood and realized that as I turned onto my street I was at 3.5 miles. In a meager attempt to add some distance to the run, I started zig zagging across the road, which resulted in nothing. I ended up running past my house and eventually got to 4 miles.
At the end of it I felt awesome. This is the longest I’ve ever run, and amazingly I wasn’t exhausted to the point where a coffin was needed. My knees for the rest of the day were fine, however today they aren’t so happy. As much as I want to push my distance further, I know I need to curtail my aspirations a bit if I want to make it to my final goal. There will be a lot of time later to up my distance.
Final note, the scale is moving again! Between the run, and two swim workouts I’m down to 270.2. I’m sure by the end of the weekend I’ll be into the 260′s.
Until next time…
