Y5K #10

Another week of running come and gone and for the most part it went really well:

• Monday was definitely a "score one for mental toughness" day.  I was really tempted to just take another day off for "recovery" from Saturday's 5K, but somehow I talked myself into going, because I knew that whatever day was the first day would probably be just as tough.  Anyway, for variety I picked a new route, or at least not one I've done since I started training.  Unfortunately this new route goes west from my house which means it starts out downhill and finishes with the uphill portion.  I decided it was okay if I at least didn't take another step up on the training schedule and just stuck with the 1.5/3.5 split that nearly killed me last time. :)  And despite the last two jogging legs really being rough, I managed to gut it out.  Wondering how I'm ever going to do a 1/4 split. Guess we'll deal with that when we get there. Oh, and I went 3.08 miles in right around 35 minutes.

• Wednesday, my feet were kind of bugging me, but I sucked it up and headed out for another 1.5/3.5 split and I just ran straight down 13th until it was time to turn around.  A little bit boring maybe, but I wasn't feeling too creative.  Did have to jog in place a few times while I waited for lights to change. That's part of why my usual routes are my usual routes, no waiting for lights.  But I'm starting to go far enough that it's trickier to avoid any traffic lights.  In any case, the run wasn't fantastic, and I felt tired earlier than usual, but interestingly enough the last leg wasn't as bad as it was on Monday. So I guess I might still be making some progress.  The real question is: Can I step up to running for 4 minutes straight with just 1 minute of rest in between? Oh, and I did 3.04 miles in 38.5 minutes.

• Saturday was a day that I feel really good about. Why? Because I finally stepped up to 1 minute walking/4 minutes jogging! I've been putting it off for a long time because it just seemed like I was already getting worn out at 1.5/3/5 and just 1 minute of resting time between jogging sets seems so short.  Anyway, I decided I'd give it a shot today and it went well. I'm sure it helps that I picked a route where I'd be mostly going downhill on the 2nd half and I did purposely try to pace myself a little on the jogging and just take it easy. I'm not very good at running at a slow pace so I tend to get worn out from the running if I just run in a way that feels most natural to me.  So, it went pretty well. I ended up doing basically 3.2 miles (3.1971 according to my map) and I forgot to check the time when I finished but it was probably somewhere between 36 and 38 minutes.  Anyway, I'm stoked to have been able to step up to this next increment.  After this my training schedule always has 1 minute walking breaks, just the jogging sets get long (4.5 minutes, 5 minutes, etc).

I really only have another week and a half of training and then a couple rest days before the next 5K. I'm curious if I'll be able to jog the whole thing. I've heard it's pretty much all downhill so that will be a nice help.  Guess we'll see. If not, I may have to find a 5K to run in August or something.