Well, it hasn't been a perfect month so far in terms of getting up EVERY morning, but I haven't missed more than 1-2 days per week (of course not counting my Sunday Rest Day). And all of the days I have missed had extenuating circumstances (aka "excuses" like too cold, stayed up late night before, and back pain) but hey, I'm improving. Slowly but steadily I am noticing improvement. April is already my highest mileage month to date (over 65 miles month to date) with a week to go. Yesterday I ran a two mile interval in 14:45. Nothing to brag about but certainly the fastest two miles I have run since High School. Based on that I have no doubts that I will improve on my 5k PR the next time I have the opportunity to run the shorter distance.
They say anything done for 21 days becomes a habit. Given I have missed a few days I don't think I am there yet, but I am getting close. I now find myself craving my morning run and the peace and solace I find during that run. When I miss it I feel "off" for some reason. You know I got the bug when I was reading the running commentary of the Boston Marathon on Monday. Why should I care? I DON'T KNOW! But I do. More than anything I was jealous that I'm not fast enough to join them. I have dropped my Sports Illustrated subscription in favor of Runners World. I find myself now debating if I will play church basketball next season as I don't get the same satisfaction out of it and I used it as a reason to not sustain my running over the winter this year. I also found that I enjoyed reffing the games more than I did playing in them.
One interesting thing of note is that of the 65 miles in April, not 1 has been on a treadmill. I have found that the draw of the road, trail, OUTSIDE, has been a big part of my sustained effort. Where last fall I only had the draw of that next race to motivate me to jump on the treadmill and stare at a wall for 30 minutes, I am slowly turning a corner where the race is the celebration at the end of training but the training is part of the joy as well.
Hey, who knows how it will be going this time next month, but for now, I am loving it. Even if my toenails are dying and falling off... but that's another story.
2 comments:
After all your injuries playing church ball, you know I won't be crying if you give it up. Reffing would be second of your favourite jobs involved with sports- maybe you can convince them to have a sports announcer during the games.
Seriously, your toenails are falling off? This was a great post. And I was wondering if you could give me some advice. I have always hated running. But since it's a free form of exercise and I desperately need the exercise...I'm planning on starting running in the evenings. I was thinking of going across the street to the school and just running around the campus there (rather than parading through the neighborhood). Do you have any advice for a beginning runner like me?
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