Thursday is my last chance workout before my official weigh in on a Friday am. So I always try to push myself hard and think of any extra ounce I might possibly be able to lose lol.
Today I had decided I would try to do a LONG run (for most runners it's piddly, but for me it's long lol). I've been running a regular 5k on the treadmill for a few weeks, so aimed for 5.5k today taking into account the 10% rule I keep reading about for increasing distance. I've done it once before but it was more luck than planning, and it was a few weeks ago, so in line with my mixing up my runs Thursday is going to be my long run day for a while. I set off at my steady pace with my ipod newly updated and decided I wasn't going to look at the time til I'd run 9 songs. When I'd run 4 songs I doubted I could do the full run, I felt tired and the devil on my shoulder kept saying, you've only run about 12mins probably, there's no way you can do 40-45. But I looked at my HRM and saw that my heart rate was still quite low so I knew I wasn't as tired as I thought and just pushed on. I was wearing a new pair of knee length capri's today and I looked in the mirror at my knees and calves and kept telling myself "look at those legs, look how strong they are now and what you can do with them". After the 9 songs I had run 32mins and that made me feel like I could do it. I listened to another two songs then put the timer back on the screen to watch for when I hit 5.5k. I'm slow I know, but I ran 5.5k in 42.59mins! When I was nearing the end I actually felt fab and considered keeping going to 6k, but I thought I should quit while I was on a high. I LOVE the buzz after finishing a run, I know I keep saying it, but running makes me feel so strong and like a totally different person.
I then went on to do the rest of my workout and the whole thing went great. I pushed myself hard but had fun listening to my music, and felt tired but exhilerated after.
So far I've had a great week workout wise, mixing up my runs has been just the change I needed and I'm so glad I'm feeling better about it all. I know it's only been two runs, but I really think doing different types of runs is going to help me improve as well as being more interesting. Not sure yet whether I will do another 5.5k next Thur or try 6k, what do you think?
Wow! Good for you Lisa! Sounds like you're doing the right thing by changing up your workouts. I can't wait til i've been doing this long enough that i'll need to change mine! LOL! And i totally understand the motivation you got when you were looking at your legs...when you actually see results it empowers you.
ReplyDeleteKeep it up!
Sandy :-)