I'm a Twenty Minute Runner!

C25K Week 5 Day 3

Weather - cloudy but bright, 12.7 degrees C, wind W 1mph

I'd love to be able to sit here, dear reader, and type away about the grueling challenge of today's run, and how I had to fight valiantly to stagger over the finish line to my own private hero's welcome. Yet, despite the fact that I do feel I have achieved a significant milestone, it was a disappointing run today. In fact, that isn't a fair description; it would be fairer to say that I ran disappointingly today.

Part of the problem concerned how I felt this morning. I only slept for about six hours (and that was interrupted), my breathing was quite wheezy this morning and I just didn't feel anywhere near my best. I even had a bit of a sniffle. Yet I can't really blame these factors for the way that I ran. I think the real problem was just poor strategy.

Now before you start thinking that all this talk of strategy is a little bit over the top for someone who could barely run a minute five weeks ago, I want to emphasise that strategy, even in non-competitive running, is pretty important. It's about playing to your strengths to get the best possible result, whatever that might happen to be. At this stage of the game it's all about running for a set amount of time, but the same principles apply pretty much across the board.

An excellent strategy for me today would have been to start out at a slow, steady pace and gradually build up to a slightly quicker steady pace, which I could sustain for the major part of the run. That way I would maintain a good average pace, not go too hard on my body, be working in my target heart rate zone and be building a firm foundation for future distance increases. The strategy I actually employed, largely unwittingly, was to tear off like a bat out of hell wondering why I was having trouble breathing, send my heart rate through the roof and spend the final 15 minutes decreasing my pace to try and bring my heart rate down, only to see it spiraling upwards out of control.

I have to remember the positives about today: namely that I did run for twenty minutes, and I did feel that, even though I was tired, I had enough left in the tank to run for another two or three minutes had there been a crocodile chasing me or something. The sense of pride in my achievement does, barely, outweigh my negative concerns. But I am beginning to wonder just how long it will take me to learn the fundamental truth that I must set off slowly and build my pace gradually.

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