WEEK 4 - 30 MINUTES???

Greetings,

Today marks the end of week 4 of my training and my goal was to be able to run for 30 minutes straight, comfortably, by the end of this week.

During the week, I struggled through 25 minute runs on Wednesday and Friday, which left me a bit skeptical that I would be able to make it to 30 minutes by Sunday. I was even more skeptical after I attended a wedding reception last night with an open bar. A late night and several drinks is not how I usually like to prepare for a Sunday morning run.

I set my alarm for 6 AM anyway, and I was up and ready to run by 6:30 AM. I tuned into to the news to check the weather and thankfully, the forecast was a lot cooler than it has been lately: 66 degrees Fahrenheit with hardly any humidity. Sweet! I arrived at Valley Green for my 7 AM run as scheduled.

By the way, the Valley Green portion of Wissahickon Trail has become my favorite running venue, by far. It's shaded by lots of trees and runs along the Wissahickon Creek. There are lots of birds, squirrels, other runners, walkers, mountain bikers, and hikers. Even though the running surface is a bit rugged (very rocky and occasional mounds of horse manure), I look forward to running on the trail on Sunday mornings.

Anyway, I headed out ready for an uphill battle to get to at least 25 minutes today. Fifteen minutes into my run, I felt totally relaxed. I was going at a slow and steady pace, enjoying the cooler weather and the scenery. The next time I look at my watch, I was into 27 minutes of running! I ran right through 25 minutes with no problem. I was really surprised because during the previous 25 minute runs, the last 5 minutes were a real struggle.

The last 3 minutes were almost just as comfortable as the first 3 minutes. No heavy, labored breathing, no muscle tiredness, no knee issues, just a nice, easy-going 30 minute run. I felt awesome afterward. Not just because I met my goal, but because I had a good run in general. I felt like I could have run another 30 minutes.

Thus far, I haven't been paying much attention to how far I've been running because I wanted to focus just on the length of time I can run to increase my endurance. But today I was curious about how far I ran today, so I used MapMyRun.com to get an estimate. It turns out that I ran between 3.5 and 4 miles, which is a lot farther than I thought it would be. Nice! This is a huge confidence boost with my first 5K coming up in less than 3 weeks.

My goal for week 5 will be to just stick with 30 minute run sessions and start tracking the distance I run. I will have to recalibrate my Nike+ system or return it for another one because it was way off before and after I calibrated it when I first bought it a month ago. I haven't used it since then because I wasn't concerned with distance or mile splits anyway. But I think now is a good time to start tracking those variables.

My Day 30 Weigh-In is in a few days, so check back in for some before-and-after pics and to see if I lost any weight.




Relaxing after a great run,


Almost Thirty