My Running Journal, 021710

Today I ran 3 miles in 36:27.

Slow. Too slow for my liking. I felt like I was running through molasses this morning. Painful, tired molasses. 36 and a half minutes is really way too long – I probably could have walked the course in less time than that – and unfortunately, I’m probably not using hyperbole.

I comfort myself, a teeny tiny bit, knowing that, since I started all of this, this run constitutes my 9th morning run (that I have been tracking). A month ago I was struggling to complete a mile. This morning I wasn’t really struggling – right at the start I had to stop to walk a bit to warm up my hamstring, but other than that, keeping going wasn’t the problem.

Picking up the pace was the problem. I think part of the reason why I was running so slowly this morning, beside having to stop or really slow down to not get hit by cars, was that I was thinking about my stride. Running relaxed still isn’t something that I am doing without thinking about. I’m trying to keep my toes relaxed or slightly dorsi-flexed, landing on the ball of my foot, trying not to let my heel strike, knees bent, hips relaxed, back straight, head up, etc., etc. This morning, at times, I almost felt as if I was running in place – as if I didn’t have any forward inertia.

I know part of that is fatigue – Since the beginning of this month I have started running four times a week, Crossfit three times a week, and a Taiko class once a week. Lots, and lots of energy expenditure. Even with a rest day or two thrown in, this morning was a report by my body that I am pushing it.

I know that this is just the beginning. That my body will get used to it, and get stronger. And so far I have just been going on jogs.

Tomorrow in the Crossfit class we are going to discuss setting goals. Small, short term, measurable and achievable goals.

So I have three goals that I can complete before tomorrow’s Crossfit class.
1. Metronome. I need to set a steady pace count – my chanting to myself just isn’t cutting it. So I am going to find a small device that acts as a metronome, and will run with it clipped to my running gear tomorrow morning.
2. Run faster. I’m jogging, not pushing too hard for fear of really messing up my hamstring. But I think that I can definitely move faster.
3. Tomorrow morning, instead of a 2 miler, out and back, I am going to jog ¼ mile to warm up and get the hitch out of my giddy-up, and then run a mile for time.

As an aside, we were introduced to a popular structure of Crossfit workouts last night – the tapering reps. Last night we finished the class with 3 rounds of 20-15-10 pushups, squats, pullups. That means 20 of each exercise, and then 15 of each exercise, and then 10 of each exercise. For time. I finished in 8:35, and I was the last one. But I finished, and finished as strong as I was able to. So that probably counts for something.