Sunday, April 27, 2008

Running Intervals



I'm actually a little bit excited. It's been a long time since running has been a part of my life and I kind of miss it. For me, however, I know that it takes quite a bit to get myself up to speed enough where I feel that I can really call myself a runner. So I've been rather overwhelmed and even a little bit depressed over what a task it will be to get myself to that place.

I've been trying to do more walking in general (thus, the pedometer) and I have also been throwing in some running intervals, where appropriate. And it's been terribly hard and daunting end even rather embarrassing (in public), but I've been trying anyway. And then tonight I got on the treadmill and started to do my intervals and I just decided to dial it down a bit. So, I brought it down to this horrifyingly slow pace and was able to run for intervals of 4 - 5 minutes at a time! (I had been doing 1-minute intervals) Color me amazed. Well, duh, I've been in this running game long enough to know that slowing down is the key to building mileage for a beginner (or re-starter, as I am). I've even advised newbies to do this myself. Duh, duh, duh. I think it's just that even my "too-fast" pace is itself an embarrassingly slow pace, that the slow-down from that is just almost ridiculous (at least if the treadmill display is to be believed). But at this stage in the process I really just have to forget about all that anyway. Forget about pace and speed, just get time / distance in. Get my time in on the road (or the TM belt) and the pace can come later. I know this, I guess I just forgot that I know it. Or something.

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