I wasn't particularly sure what to expect from today. In week 5 you do the 20 minute run on day 3, and then you're right back to intervals at the start of week 6. You get a nice gentle return to running and build up gradually to the 25 minute run on Week 6 Day 3. Today, however, you just get thrown straight back in at 25 minutes. Not that I'm too upset about that; it's actually nice to be able to run without the podcasts and just look at your watch every now and again. But it did concern me that I might not be strong enough after pushing myself on Friday. Yet again C25K has proved me wrong.
I've stopped looking at Garmin during the run, other than at a pre-arranged point close to where I usually finish to check the time, because I seemed to be devoting more attention to it than to the road on Friday. I thought it would be nice just to listen to my body and see whether my perception of the run measured up to Garmin's report. My warm up suggested I was fairly strong, and I certainly felt loose, so I set off at a nice steady pace. I actually realised after a few minutes that it was probably a bit ambitious, so I eased back. I started finding things difficult after the first mile, and by the time I got to the hill things were getting progressively harder. I say hill: if you were walking up it you would probably barely notice the slope, but running up it, let me tell you, is an altogether different experience.
By the time I got to the top of the slope I was pretty much shattered, but after recovering for a little while running down the slope at the other side I started to feel better. In fact, by the time I got back on the flat again I got a sudden urge to pick up the pace. This was at about 23 minutes in to the run and it felt for all the world as if I was kicking to the finish. A sprint it was not, but I felt that I finished as strongly as I started.
I'm also very pleased to report that Garmin pretty much agrees with my perception, so that can't be bad. I covered less distance today than on Friday, probably due to my poor pace management, but I still felt good and was much cheered by my strong finish.
If you really want to - and if you're anyone other than me it may be quite a dull experience - you can view my Garmin stats by clicking the following link:
C25K Week 7 Day 1
Happy running folks.
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3 comments:
We have some of those "hills" around here. It's certainly not mountainous, but my heart rate monitor agrees with me that there is definitely extra effort required!
Great post - I know what you mean about devoting too much time to the Garmin. Lately I've had the same problem and I've purposefully used my old school stop watch instead of my Garmin on several runs this past week.
Funny how we can let training tools get in the way of running!
I agree about ditching the podcast. I'm looking forward to the last interval run so I can just put on some music or a spoken word podcast like Phedippidations.
I find the interval podcast gets you simply thinking about when an interval will end. I'm looking forward to getting my mind on something else altogether.
As for hills, I also know what you mean Gary. The elevation change on my run is probably no more than 50 ft. but if I hit that during my final run segment it feels like 500.
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