Geek Into Shape

I spent the morning of this Labor Day holiday laboring through a 5K run.  This is the 2nd 5K I’ve run in my life, but it’s the first in recent years.  I managed to jog the whole thing which thrills me immensely.  I was shooting for a time under 32:00, but that didn’t happen.  I managed to complete it in 33:06 which is a respectable time when you look at my runs over the past 2 weeks.

The hardest thing about running in a race instead alone is the other people.  When other people are involved, it made me want to run faster to keep up.  It was also hard at the beginning because I was having to move around to pass people.  When I’m by myself it’s really easy to zone out and ignore everything around me.  

I’m happy that I managed to make a short term goal and make it happen.  It’s always a boost to the ol’ ego when you can set out to do something and then actually do it.  Now I have a baseline time that I can try to beat on the next race.

Last week I told you that I was hitting the training hard for the Franklin Classic 5K on Labor Day.  Keeping to my word, I managed to run a total of 10 miles this week.

Monday I decided to try a new route I had never run around work.  It was a 3.2 mile route that took me around the mall.  I started with 5 minutes of walking and set off to jog the entire thing.  I didn’t quite manage to jog the rest of the way that day.  It was 92 degrees out with 73% humidity and once I got on the pavement I just got too hot.  I ran about 2 miles before I had to walk.  I ended up finishing in around 40 minutes.

Wednesday was my normal 3 mile route from home.  Since I sucked it up so bad in the heat on Monday, I was determined to jog the entire run following my 5-minute warm up walk.  The sun was setting, but ut was still damn hot: 90 degrees with 60% humidity.  I managed to complete the entire route jogging and finished 3.1 miles in 35:45.

Today I wanted to extend what I did on Wednesday just to prove to myself that a) it wasn’t a fluke and b) I could actually jog 3.1 miles non-stop after my warm-up walk.  I woke up early to get out before things heated up and it was a comfortable 76 degrees with 63% humidity. Starting with my 5-minute walk again, I finished the route jogging for a total of 3.8 miles.  It took me 44:34 to finish up this morning.

I’m feeling very satisfied with my progress this week.  I was able to overcome the mental barrier of jogging the entire 5K.  My body is feeling good now that I’m down about 20 lbs compared to when I tried to get into running a few years ago.  I can’t even begin to tell you how much easier it is to run at this lower weight.  Hopefully that will keep me injury free.

I just recently decided that I want to run a 5K on Labor Day.  I haven’t been running at all since I jacked myself last year.  Now that my weight is down, I decided it was time to get moving again.

I only have 3 weeks to prep for the 5K, so I’m going to have to kick this into overdrive.  There is no easing into this.  Keeping that theme, I jogged/walked 5K yesterday.  Here are the stats:

74 degrees, 62% humidity I ran 3.2mi in 37:53.

I know I’m not breaking any records.  The run did feel pretty good.  I’ve decided that a lot of my problems were the shoes I was wearing.  I’ve done a few small runs lately in some cross-trainers and it felt good.  Yesterday I decided to go back to my running shoes and I had some foot pain again.  I’m throwing those damn things out.  They just don’t work with my body.  I’ll go back to Brooks;  they were more comfortable, but they wore out quicker than I would have liked.

I ran the first 1.75 miles at a good pace without stopping.  After that I lost some of my steam and had to walk a minute.  At that point I alternated jogging and walking making sure to keep my walks no longer than 1 minute.  Jogging is so much easier with a few pounds gone.  I can only hope that it will get even easier still.