I thought I would write a quick post this morning to get myself back in the groove of things. I have been a little behind on writing posts because we have been extending our side deck to the front so that we can build a ramp for my dad's wheelchair (at least until he can walk more by himself).
I am pretty proud of me, my dad and my awesome husband for our work on the deck so far. Chris and I have done almost all the work ourselves. We have become deck-building extraordinaires. Daddy and I cut all the spindles for the rails and we put the rails together ourselves. Well, he mostly stabilized as I did the drilling and cutting but still hard work from a wheelchair. See below for some pictures of our progress so far. We have 8 feet left to go to connect to our front deck. It will be a total of 32 feet added to our side deck which is making that deck totally awesome now.
Because of taking of break after the Rome marathon and then working on the deck I have only recently returned to running (2 days ago). Well, actually, Chris and I both did a 3 mile run last weekend and thought we were going to die!! It was sad. I think we were so exhausted from working all day on the deck and I did a plyometric workout the day before that we just couldn't make ourselves move well for the run. It was just a pitiful display of running.
Tuesday I started my base training for Chicago. I will use May and the first week or two of June to build my base then go into my training program. We will run the Bolder Boulder so that is why my base will go into June. I still don't have my whole program made out because I am waiting to finish my latest book to see if I get other ideas from it that I want to incorporate into my program.
I just started reading, Run Forever, by Amby Burfoot.
So far I am loving it. It is just going back to the basics of running and what makes running so great. It is not all about using all of this tech or spending hours mulling over whether you pronate too much, etc., it is about running in it's most basic, simplified form. I am only about a 1/3rd of the way through but I am really liking it so far.
Just like so many others he talks a lot about running slow for about 80% of your training and especially for new runners. I won't go into all of the benefits of doing slow running and building up your base because that is another post which I will re-post at some time because we all need reminders, myself included. He talks about how he will get in front of a beginner runner on the track or road and tell them to not step on his heels and he will run as slow as possible until they get the idea.
I tried Tuesday and yesterday running as slow as I could possibly go to see how I did. It is very hard to make yourself stay that slow for the whole run but I have to admit it made my dead legs feel revived and good. In fact, I felt good all over. I was so sore from the work on the deck but after the run I felt great. Now, I might have felt great after the run regardless because I have been missing it but the run I did on the weekend where I tried to just take off and go faster did not make me feel great, in fact I felt discouraged because it was so hard and I was so fatigued and sore after it.
The best I was able to manage for as slow as I could go was a 12:15 mile. I couldn't actually manage that the whole time but I was able to go that slow for almost a mile. Most of the time I was at an 11:40-11:50. The good thing was I felt like I could just keep going like that forever and that is a good feeling despite all the other good things it is doing for me. It also made me feel good because I can remember a time when I could not run a 12:00 minute mile after all my trouble with IVF and breaking my back. So now, as slow as I could make myself go without slowing to a walk was faster than that. So, I am obviously getting some fitness back.
It is hard to get out there and go as slow as possible. For one, it is just hard to think that people driving by won't be laughing at me for going so slow. (I know, that is stupid that I care or even think that!) Also, it is hard to do because we always think that to get faster we always have to go faster but that has been proven to be incorrect many times over. It is like thinking I have to starve myself to lose weight when in fact that can sometimes really work against you when you restrict too much. It is hard to wrap our minds around this kind of stuff sometimes because it is so ingrained in our brains!
Anyway, I guess my point to this is that I am going to try my absolute best to do every run in May (except the Bolder Boulder) at the slowest I can do it since I am just building my base and see what happens. I am always experimenting with myself so why not? Even though I preach this all the time to runners I still have a hard time sticking to it. I am someone who loves speedwork and killing myself with a good sweat so it is hard to not do that sometimes. You would think I would be faster because of that but alas, I like food too much!! I need to lose a few lbs to help my running also! But, that is another day. For today I will focus on my slow running for building my base. I will let you know how it goes.
One thing I noticed is that I am not so focused on looking at my watch for my pace and I can actually just enjoy the sights and sounds on my run like I used to. I think I might even listen to a few podcasts!
Here are a few pictures from our project.
And here is a cool picture I took of my husband's "new" 1966 fastback Mustang.
I hope you are having a great day!