I’m not a runner. I can apparently run, but I don’t think I have the mindset of a runner. Yet. I’ve been trying to be consistent on my running the past couple of months and with only a couple of minor set backs I’ve been able to maintain my consistency.
I believe that this is starting to show. Not only in my running times and distances, but in my mental game as well. 10 miles was always my “That is a long ass way to run” distance and as such, I always had a mental block there. This past Saturday, started off with a similar mental block. Especially since I didn’t make my 8 mile run the weekend before, nor did I actually run at all leading up to the ten miles. Just a super busy week of parties, get togethers and the like which caused me to miss out on my runs. So there it is, me thinking about all the missed runs leading up to 10 miles. My Wall. The point I struggle at. I’ve run past it before, but it’s been well over a year since the last time or two I’ve done it.
Because of those set backs last week, I went out with the goal of 10 miles. But with the option to cut it short if need be. I decided that the best way to accomplish this would be to head to Memorial Park and just run the loop there, so I could quit after 3 or 6 miles if need be and figured if I hit 9 miles, I will just walk if I have to, to get that 10 miles.
I set my Garmin up for my 5/1s and set off. And off I went! I had no problems at all until around 7.75 miles when my legs started to tighten a little bit. but I ran through it and finished my run with 10.35 miles in 1:43:01. Even with my 5/1 run/walk pacing I managed a 9:57 minute mile. Without the walks, my run average was 9:11. I was rather happy with that. Of course I didn’t recover properly afterwards since I went to the car show here and walked around for another 3 or so hours afterwards, but still. Things are looking good! And I’m kind of looking forward to the 11 mile run scheduled for this coming Saturday.
Also, last night I ran 4 miles, nice and easy and didn’t feel like I had too much residual issues from the run on Saturday. 4.13 miles in 35:56, means a 8:43 min/mile average 1) 8:52, 2) 8:35, 3) 9:01, 4) 8:21, 5) 8:53 (for the .13) So it was mostly negative splits except for mile 3, which I don’t know what happened there, but still not bad!
Let I said before, I’m mentally, not a runner… Yet. But that may change soon….
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