07/06/2008
5K Baby!!
It's been a month since I started jogging, and today, I actually ran 5K continuously, i.e., with no walking breaks. It took 39 minutes, which is geriatrically slow, but that's 39 minutes of continuous running! Actually that in itself is another first. I don't think I've ever run for 39 minutes straight before in my entire life. I actually felt surprisingly good for most of it. I had a giant stitch in my side for the last 10 minutes or so of that, but I'm quite proud of myself for pushing through it and making it to the 5k mark.
I can hardly believe it, actually! I can now lay to rest the notion I developed as an 11-year-old that 3K was the max I could do, and that it takes half an hour and a lot of pain to go that distance. And to think that a month ago, it was all I could do to run a whole minute before I would need to stop and take a 2-minute walking break.
So 2 birds with one stone today. My first 5k, and my longest-ever continuous run, at 39 minutes. Yay!!!
I thought it was going to take two months to get to this point, but it only took one. This PR should also be quite easy to beat with a bit more practice. (Can you believe that the really good runners can do a 5K twice as fast?) Anyway, now it's time to set a new goal. I think a far-off goal would be to complete the Torshavn Marathon in 2009 (don't ask why Torshavn, of all places, bit of a long story), but I'm pretty sure I need an in-between goal, so I'll have to think about that for a bit. Off the top of my head, I would like to run a sub-30 minute 5K, and I would also like to start thinking about a 10K somehow, but I'm not sure about the timeframe.
In the meantime, I'm going to spend the day being proud of myself for getting my sedentary, allergic-to-running self this far, and for proving to myself that I can overcome limits I put on myself if I just get myself into a new "I can do it" frame of mind.
Woohoo! Time to take on the world!
19:15 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this
06/07/2008
Day 1 of Running
Well, I bit the bullet and decided to try to get into the habit of running. I've tried this before and failed, so I don't know if this will work better, but we'll see!
Running has never actually been a forte of mine at any point in my life. In grades 5 and 6 I went to an elementary school where gym class was actually a mass 3k run every other day. I used to really hate these runs, and regardless of whether it was September after a summer off, or June after a whole year of doing these runs, I never seemed to feel a difference. I was always dragging my sorry butt along the course, gasping for air, wishing I could just walk it, and wishing I could be anywhere else but there.
Then came high school where things didn't improve. I have memories of being so exhausted my bones felt hollow, never quite being able to keep up with even the non-varsity kids, always dreading gym class. I was soooooo happy when I got old enough that gym class wasn't mandatory anymore. It took a long time to reverse the "thank God I don't ever have to do another exercise again" mentality!
Now I dance, and I like Irish dance, but it really drains me and I wish I had the endurance for it. I always come out of there thinking, wow, I need to get in better shape. Sometimes, when training for a competition, I'd be in 2 dance classes a week, and even then, I could feel a difference in fitness level. However, dance class is an expensive way to get exercise, so I don't want to load up too much on that. Also, I have a bad habit of taking up activities which require a lot of specialized practice (i.e., learning routines/steps/music/etc).
Enter running. All I really need to do is force myself to put one foot in front of the other on a regular basis. No need for intense brainpower, memorization, or expensive classes. And since it's cardio which is basically killing me in dance class at the moment, it seemed like a good solution.
Except, of course, for the fact that I don't really like real-life running! In dreams sometimes I dream that I can run and not feel tired, and it feels great. I wish that's what happened when I got out and ran today, but it was quite a different story. I decided to do a run/walk type of thing to work up to running continuously, and while a lot of people claim that you get into a running zone and time flies by, I found that the half hour I was out there felt like an eternity. It was also really hard, and my technique is probably really crappy because I feel almost immediately that I'm about to get shin splints. I also don't have proper running shoes, which I need to get ASAP if I'm to avoid incapacitating myself within a week.
I think about how much I struggled just to walk & run for half an hour this morning, and yet there are people who complete marathons, which is totally unfathomable to me at this point. On the other hand, it means there's a whole lot of room for improvement and for things to get better, so maybe (just maybe) it's possible I'll clear this "running really sucks" zone and get into the "feel good" zone people keep talking about, and actually accomplish something like hitting a particular milestone. I don't think I've ever run 5k in my whole life, so I'll make that my first goal (after being able to run 30 min in a row!)
So at the moment, I feel really worn out physically, probably am a bit dehydrated (got to learn to manage that better in the future), but mentally I'm really psyched that I actually managed to get my butt out of bed and go for a run. Now all I have do is do it more than once! :-)
12:46 Posted in Sports | Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this