Three Weeks = Three Eye-Opening Experiences

This is going to be easy enough... That is what I was thinking when I started training with the intention of blowing away my personal best. I still think I will accomplish my goal, but I'm already learning important lessons. The training is more time consuming than I like. Running, even a little bit, faster is much harder on your body. Running is a mental exercise.

The running schedule I chose was the Intermidiate-I training published by Hal Higdon. I thought it would be a piece of cake because I've already been through the Novice training twice. The program features an additional running day to make five runs a week. That is a big difference for several reasons. Your body has one less day to recover is probably the most significant change. I'm feeling aches and pains that I never have in the past. Small things but nothing that will stop my training. The social inconvenience of running five days a week is irritating. I used to slide a run back or forward a day to fit my calendar. One less day available for slack means a lot less flexibility. This is even more constained when training in the winter months. I would hate to miss a day because a icy/rain storm could hit later in the week.

A one minute per mile decrease in split time is an enormous change. Before my runs were a nice jog through the park. Now I have to push myself to to ensure I hit my split time. I think this will become easier because I've seen signs of such. Prior to this training I ran an 8:26 split once. During this program I have clocked a time of 8:02 and been in the 8:10 area on just about every run. Some of those miles were easy to run. The result of running faster is a pounding heart, more sweat and the need to determination.

Mentally I have had to be tough and SMART. Tough because kicking out an eight minute mile after I have already run five miles is a challenge for my legs. During a run I've asked myself if I am going to give up or grit my teeth. Running smart is something that I'm slowly starting to grasp. It seems that my split times are slowest when I try to run fast out of the blocks. When I go for a jog, my splits are fastest. This weekend I think I put together the reason this is happening. I'm not running smart 'races.' I say races because I've read many articles point out a problem runners have when competing. They start out too fast. I need to warm my legs up instead of burning them out. This is easier said than done -- it takes mental power.

This training program isn't going to be as simple as I first imagined! Reflecting on my progress is less than discouraging. I'm going to get through the schedule. I know I can run an eight minute pace. My legs are learning and my mind if figuring out how to do it. The challenge begins by knowing what I'm up against. I didn't at first, but the task is becoming clear. 3 weeks and 15 runs down. 17% complete.




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posted by jim @ 7:56 AM Permanent Link |