My Running Journal, 031110

2 miles @ an average pace of 11:04 min/mile. First mile was done in 11:18, and second mile was done in 10:53.

Oh boy am I looking forward to resting the legs a bit. Especially with a race this Sunday. Today’s run was a bit of a battle even before I started – I woke up feeling a little on the groggy side, and realized it was drizzling and cold outside. And then I stood up. Feet felt swollen and very sore, and the lateral edges of my calves hurt. It is only a soreness, but there seems to be a certain level of muscle weakness – I know that my legs are probably fine, but when I woke up the last thing that I wanted to do was to go for a run.

Got dressed, stepped outside, started the metronome, and the Iphone, and took off. Today was a 2 mile day, and out of the door I wasn’t even sure if I could make it around the block. I started walking, and headed to the corner, turned the corner, and started running. Or trotting. Or something. I had to run about half of a block to get my feet in sync with the beep of the metronome, and then it was a challenge to stay motivated to keep going. To want to keep going. My legs keep telling me to stop, turn around, go home. The little conspirator keeps whispering to me that all I need to do is run a mile, or less. I mean, come on, your legs ache, your muscles all feel creaky, it’s cold, your toes are frozen, you’re tired. Just turn at the next block and go home. You can keep running if you want, but just turn around. So I ran the full two miles today. My pace wasn’t awesome, and I felt like crap for most of it. I was thinking of a whole litany of excuses based on pains and possible muscles pulls.

And that was just two miles. I have found in the past, that if I can make it past the first mile and a half, I mostly stop whining, at least in my head. And the desire to stop after I get past that point, for the most part, only comes on again after six or so miles. What it is going to be like to run 26 miles, I cannot perceive yet.

Since I started running in my Vibrams, I have averaged a pace of about 10:50 minutes per mile. Slow, slow, slow. But averaging my pace from February, I’m moving an average of 6 seconds per mile faster, without shoes on. Which is cool. I’m hoping that this translates to even faster times once I get accustomed to running without running shoes, and my calves quiet down and allow me to start to go for that 8 min/mile pace on every run. What that shows me, even though I am having all of these negative thoughts and questioning myself while I am running, is that I am actually improving. Achey legs aside, I am feeling less and less winded at the end of the runs – which hopefully means that my cardiovascular health and endurance is improving as well. It also means that I need to start pushing to go faster and farther. Which is already set into the schedule that I am keeping – the Sunday runs are incrementally increasing in distance, and by the end of the Spring training cycle, my week day runs will all be 3 milers. Hooray.

I’m trying to keep on track with my diet, but may or may not fail spectacularly. Last night was Dumpling night at a friend’s house, and while I did make a couple using mustard greens as the wrappers, I pretty much gorged myself on fried and boiled dumplings with whole wheat wrappers. So a slightly rough start to my “diet” as far as that goes.