Friday, August 6, 2010

Gut-Check Time


I'm done half of my training for my 5k race: a 3 week "run 30 mins" program, and week 5 of an 8 week "run your first 5k" program. I have made some great progress - probably the most important thing is I have a explosive desire to RUN!



One thing that worries me is that I am not breaking World and Olympic Records for running. And my own pace progress has slowed and appears to be moving away from my target line. Tomorrow is an easy 30-40 mins run of any distance. I don't want to tamper with the training system even though I want to break into a sprint until my rib cage is on fire and my heart is beating up into my throat and post a decent pace time. Maybe I should wait for all three final weeks to complete. I should run a Saturday 5k race as if it was a real race and look at that time, then use the remaining time to my Birthday to improve the time. It is so very hard to fight with the impatience.

4 comments:

Chris K said...

Andrew, read this: http://www.duathlon.com/articles/1460

Christina said...

ahhh, I know the impatience feeling and I still know it, although it has become less over time. You'll find that one day you just run faster and feel better. Keep up the great work. You are doing awesome.

Andrew Opala said...

Chris: that is one of the most complete posts about training that I have seen. I can see how in one week the Hal Higdon training fits within the heart/endurance, speed, weight training triangle that Mark Allen talks about. I can relate to a lot of his analysis and wonder in my current training. I think I need to analyze this post and some of the comments below in more detail. Thank you. Thank you!

Welcome Christina - thanks for the encouragement. I hope I can do the same for new runners.

The Boring Runner said...

I TOTALLY know what you are talking about. I'm impatient like that too.

BUT, if you look at the overall trend, it is downward. It is especially promising that the "slowest" times are trending downward. Give it time, it will come.