Running Update

Now this is something unexpected. I've ran every day for the past 5 days. I even ran on Sunday! Sunday is our busiest morning because I have to leave the house really early because of Sunday school. But I NEEDED to get a run in so that I could move my running graph farther over. I actually woke up super early on a Sunday so that I could run. Weird.

Here's how I did:

Saturday

2.29 miles

20 minutes 07 seconds

8 minutes 45 seconds/mile pace

333 calories

The last part of the run was great. I clicked my power song on and ran up a big hill. And when my workout ended, Paula Radcliffe told me that I had just completed my longest run. Wow! Now that was exciting! Paula Radcliffe talked to me! What? You don't know who Paula Radcliffe is? Actually, I didn't either. But I figured she was some runner that is sponsored by Nike. It turns out that she's the women's world record holder for the marathon. Here she is in a commercial:

I took a look at her personal records. She can pretty much clobber me in any race from 400m on up. And not just a little clobbering. It would be a really good clobbering. I imagine that I could beat her in 100m, but I couldn't find any data on her times so I'm not sure. To be safe, if I ever have to challenge her to a race, I'll try and keep it to somewhere between 10 and 40 meters (probably closer to 10 would be better).

Here are my Sunday results. I didn't have that much time, so I just ran 2 miles:

2 miles

16 minutes 41 seconds

8 minutes 18 seconds/mile pace

291 calories

At the end of this run, Lance Armstrong talked to me and said that I just ran my fasted mile! Lance Armstrong! You've heard of him right? He runs the marathon 45 minutes slower than Paula Radcliffe.

Well, that brings us to today. I was all set to try for a 5k today. That's 5000 meters. 3.1 miles (although, I think 5k sounds much more impressive than 3.1 miles). But I wanted to make sure I could reach my goal, so I set the time for 25 minutes. I figured that if I felt good at the end of 25 minutes, I'd run a little extra and finish up at 5k. I made sure to start at a nice slow pace so that I'd be able to run the whole distance. My slow pace lasted for about half a block. WHAT? Ok, so things started to go south a little early. Right after I turned the first corner, I saw this lady running ahead of me. She was probably going at about a 9 minute/mile pace. My naturally competitive side kicked in and I HAD to pass her. And I HAD to be going FAST when I passed her. So I picked up the pace and blew by her. Because I'm just TOO FAST! And afterwards I kept going TOO FAST! I imagined her behind me, staring in disbelief at my blazing speed as I left her in the dust, slowing her pace down to a stop before turning around and walking home in disgrace, where she attempts to heal her agony of defeat with 3 eskimo pies and a box of mini-donuts (I don't know if it happened for sure, but I think it did). Anyhow, after about a half mile of this, I start to wonder if maybe it wasn't such a good idea that I went out too fast. I start to slow down quickly and finish my first mile in 8'37". But the section ahead is all downhill, so I get to pick up the pace again! Until...

 

CRACK!

 

That yucky sound we just heard? Yeah, that was my ankle. I stepped on this uneven part of the ground near the gutter and rolled it. OW! So here I am hobbling downhill. And I wonder, just for a split second, if I should just stop here and head home. But then I quickly realize that this is out of the question. Why? Because I need to make the line on my distance graph move over! That's why! So here I am hobbling downhill. I get to the bottom of the hill, and the ankle is still pretty sore. I check my pace and I'm at 9'58"/mile. Great...

But after a little while, it starts to feel a bit better. At this point, I'm only halfway done with my workout. The chart of my run shows my pace doing a nice shallow downward slope over the next 10 minutes. This represents me getting really tired and wishing that I hadn't tried to annihilate that running lady. But the last portion of the graph is a steep dip. That would be me struggling to get up the 1/4 mile hill at the end. My pace for that last section? A little slower than me hobbling with a busted ankle. Not so good.

After I got up the hill, I had only a minute or so left. I ended the workout promptly at 25 minutes. No extra for me today. I was beat. But Lance Armstrong came on again and congratulated me on completing my longest run. Lance is so nice.

When I got home, I decided to weigh myself to see what kind of effect my running was having. I stepped on the scale...I'm heavier than I was before.

So here's the results of my running: my legs are sore, my back is sore, my ankle hurts, and I'm 2 pounds heavier than I was before. But I have to keep it up because of my distance graph!

I have 2 goals set right now. One is to run 16 miles in 4 weeks. The other is to run 8 times in 4 weeks. I'm already over halfway done with both of them. When I finish them, I'm going to get 2 little medals. And when I logged in today, it told me that I've completed 11 miles and I need to keep going so that I can get up to 100! I think I get a little ribbon for that.

I'm not sure why little computer pictures of medals and ribbons and a bar chart of my distance is motivating me to do something that I don't like to do. But it is. Like I said, unexpected...