I woke up at 4 a.m. today, feeling oddly refreshed because my body thought it was 10 a.m. (Germany is 6 hours ahead of EST). I did stay in bed for another hour, because it's just uncivilized to be up before 5:00, especially when you don't have to work! After that, I enjoyed a healthy breakfast, surfed the web, changed and was at Burke Lake before 8:00. It's a pretty run, one of these days I'll take some pictures and share them.
I have been putting off running at Burke Lake until I was sure that even with a walk/run I wasn't going to hurt myself. Today I threw caution to the wind and to paraphrase the Nike commercial I just did it. The circuit around the lake is about 4.5 miles, and I completed 4.75 miles in 60 mins.
Progress Report -
Image Souces: LocalHikes.com
Progress Report -
- Walk 5 mins (approx. .25 mile)
- Run 11 mins
- Walk 5 mins
- Run 6 mins
- Walk 5 mins
- Run 6 mins
- Walk 5 mins
- Run 6 mins
- Walk 5 mins
- Run 1 min (end of the loop)
- Walk 5 mins
The entire circuit including the walking averaged out to a 12'37 pace. It's kind of tough to judge distance on my running segments. I'm sure my first run was faster than average, but I'm also sure my walks stayed about the same as they always do. Factor out the walking (1.5 miles) and this leaves me with about 3.25 running miles in 30 mins. If I had maintained that pace for the entire 3.5 miles, my pace would have been about 9'13 per mile. Much better than the 11 - 12 min pace I've been hitting on my outdoor runs.
Of course, that's not even close to what happened, but it does highlight the value of walking if you need to, clearly my energy stayed up because I used fast paced recovery walks in between the running segments.
No foot or calf pain before, during, or after. Surprisingly, the big challenge today was walking. I really had to pay attention to avoid falling into heavy heel strikes. I did this by keeping my knees soft and my steps under my body - instead of long strides reaching out in front of me.
All in all, a great way to start the morning!
Of course, that's not even close to what happened, but it does highlight the value of walking if you need to, clearly my energy stayed up because I used fast paced recovery walks in between the running segments.
No foot or calf pain before, during, or after. Surprisingly, the big challenge today was walking. I really had to pay attention to avoid falling into heavy heel strikes. I did this by keeping my knees soft and my steps under my body - instead of long strides reaching out in front of me.
All in all, a great way to start the morning!
No comments:
Post a Comment