Tuesday, July 30, 2013

The value of biding one's time.

It was a beautiful morning to run, and I felt great walking out the door, despite walking right through a spiders web, full of bugs and all!  Ew.  I brushed the big pieces off of me, and cut in front of two women jogging as they headed toward my driveway.
I felt good for the first mile. Then, things started going south. My calf was just fine, but I was so winded - and I was really starting to feel disappointed. That feeling brought a cascade of emotions I was so not ready for. I wanted to stop about a quarter mile after. I felt so defeated, and hopeless. Would I ever feel that smoothness and strength and the confidence that I could endure the miles ahead of me- ever again? It was so hard to stay positive. I looked at my watch - why was I headed toward 180 bpm so quickly? it was 62 degrees - moderate humidity - I think it was about 70%, but it certainly felt drier.
I wanted to do 5 miles. But I realized I needed to switch my goals up, and fast - before I talked myself into walking home. 
I decided I would try to keep my HR under 160. This way, I could continue to run, train aerobically and keep it easy. It wasn't that simple. As I ended up making my way back home, I changed my goal to keep my HR under 170.
Even that was futile. 
But, changing goals kept me running, and as I got closer to my house, I decided to run the length of my street again, just as a defiant gesture to my negative-thinking self.

Then, I came across this when I got home: How to run faster.

During the day today, I found myself visualizing feeling really good my next run. I remember doing this on occasion when I first started running. I remember thinking I would never run a 5k in under 30 minutes.

Patience.





Runmeter Data
Magellan took a dump again today, so no HR data. Thinking I should get a HR monitor and cadence chip for iPhone and Runmeter and sell the magellan.

2 comments:

  1. You were smart to change for your goal. Yes, the patience to wait it out is so hard. I'm speaking from experience.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Welcome, Mary Lou!
      Thank you for your feedback! I actually surprised myself by changing up the plan and actually carrying it out. It's all about learning - on every run.

      Delete

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