Running In Place

A busy few days are behind me and it’s taken me most the day to kind of muster the energy to post. We had a fair amount of company for Thanksgiving dinner, which we actually celebrated yesterday due to out-of-towners. My husband’s brother and his wife came up from Poughkeepsie, and his sister and her husband came from Washington DC to spend the weekend with us. In the good news department, I really love his family and am always happy to have them, but I have to admit that 7 people in our 1200 sq. foot, 1 bathroom log cabin is pretty cozy quarters. My dad and step-mom also joined us for dinner, but fortunately they only live 2 miles down the hill so we didn’t have to find a place for them to sleep. Anyway, it was a raucous good time but ultimately exhausting.

Happily I say that I was able to get out for a couple of runs that were overall good, though I’m really struggling with getting a sense of my pace and keeping to an appropriate one.

On Thursday, as no company was arriving, Brian and I spend most of the while doing housecleaning and preparation but I was able to get out for a run in the afternoon. The weather had been very nasty in the morning with rain, thunder, and lightning at first, followed by plummeting temps and the expectation of snow. As luck would have it, while I was out on the trail, there was nothing coming down from the sky and the wind hadn’t really picked up to the predicted 50 mph gusts yet. I was scheduled for a mile and a half and I kind of just wanted to bang it out and get back home to tie up loose ends - well, bang it out I did: when I looked at my watch at the first mile it said 8:25. What the hell!?? I think that the smart thing to do would have been to slow down, I mean in real life that’s not my pace, and god knows it was far from comfortable. So, yeah, I kept on going and did the next 1/2 mile in another 3:24. What’s up with that!?

My next run was yesterday and as I was supposed to do 2 miles, I really wanted to be more reasonable and more consistent. I set Garmin’s pace alert for a fast pace of 9:17 and a slow pace of 11:00. What I really wanted was to stay at between 10:00 and 10:30. Well that old Garmin just hollered at me for about the whole run -
Garmin: Speed Up
Me: yes sir, speeding up (puff puff puff)
Garmin: Slow Down
Me: ok ok, I’m slowing down (thank you)
Garmin: Speed Up
Me: are you sure? I don’t feel like I slowed down.
Garmin: Speed Up. Speed Up.
Me: ok, this feels good, this has got to be about right
Garmin: Speed Up
Me: you little $#!%&*
Garmin: Slow Down

So when all was said and done, my first mile was 9:44 and second was 10:38. And that’s not what I’m looking for - sure I want to run faster but I’m looking to be consistent and not blow my wad in the first mile and then flounder in the subsequent miles. I just can’t seem to get an honest sense of how fast or slow I’m going. On Tuesday I’m to run 2.5 miles - my longest thus far - and I’m thinking that unless I make myself go out reeeaaaaal slow, I’m going to be all fast and hard at first and end up at a snail’s pace for the last 1/2 mile. Does this become natural after awhile?? Garmin and I aren’t going to be friends very much longer if I continue to use the pace alert.

Anyway, I’m not unhappy with the runs, the fact that I can do this at all just amazes me and I am all full of gratitude. I just really want to train right and run (and improve) with consistency, I want to go faster but I’m trying not to make that be my priority right now (though that may change after I run my first race)