Finally, I got my butt out of bed at 4:30am on a Tuesday morning and hit the roads. My brain was totally making up reasons to stay in bed: “it’s too cold,” I thought; “it’s too dark,” my mind worried; “what’s one more day of avoiding it?” my mind asked. These and other similar thoughts were running through my mind as I slowly got myself dressed, and then a little extra bundled up because it really was just that cold this morning.
[Note:I checked the weather after I got back, and found that it was 1° Fahrenheit and it felt like -10°. Yeah, my brain was definitely onto something.]
A quick 2-mile tempo run down and I was back home, I was shooting for an abyssmal 12-minute mile tempo pace. This is for several reasons:
- I haven’t run regularly enough to know what an accurate 5k race pace would be for myself,
- I knew from prior runs that I generally averaged anywhere from 12 to 13 minutes/mile when I was taking my time,
- I’m slow as hell, and jumping too far into a faster pace would have been the perfect set up for some kind of overuse injury that would sideline me, and lastly,
- It sounded like a good, arbitrary amount of time to be out of the house at 4:45am.
I’m going to gradually start pushing that pace down, so that I’m comfortably able to run a tempo pace of 10 minutes per mile. After this first 4 week training block, I’m considering extending the tempo run distance, but that might be premature at this point.
Honestly, my first real taste for what my actual endurance level will be on Saturday, when I go for a 60 minutes long run. I’m just shooting for time on my feet and nothing more. I don’t need to even run the whole time, just be out there putting the miles under my shoes. I’m going to really try and keep myself at a comfortable pace, and keep my heart rate near 120 beats/minute so as to avoid excessive fatigue throughout the run.
Between my lifting sessions yesterday morning, BJJ last night and the run this morning, I’m feeling really good! I’m just hoping that BJJ tonight treats me just as well, so that tomorrow morning’s lifting session is equally comfortable. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see!
Ramble on Fitness 