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Tuesday, July 1, 2014

A successful morning run!

We'll start with the fact that moving my sunday run to monday was a big fail. By the time I got home, made dinner and got the munchkin fed, bathed, and in bed, I had nothing left. It was also almost 9:00, and about a bazillion degrees outside.

I wrote off the run with the promise that I would make myself get up in the morning for the morning
Proof!
group "workout" run.

And I actually did it.

I woke up at five freaking o'clock in the morning to go running.

No one that knew me prior to my running would believe this fact without proof, I'm sure. I was never a runner, and was never (and still am not) a morning person. The fact that I voluntarily got myself out of bed before the sun came up, in the summer, to go running, seems improbable at best. But I did it!

As soon as I got there I started thinking I didn't belong there. The group at this session is a much smaller group than what shows up for the Saturday long runs. And they are in so much better shape.

I was super nervous, and was having trouble adjusting my new hydration belt to fit properly. I really do not like wearing a belt around my waist. It makes me feel really self conscious of the belly chub. However, after the disaster of running out of water on my run on Saturday, I wasn't going to take any chances.

One of the coaches went over the planned work out, and I started to get really scared. We were going to run an "easy" 10 minutes up to the top of cobbs hill (including what I call the hill of doom), then once up there, we were going to do 5 repeats of 2 minutes at tempo pace followed by 1 minute rest. When we were done with that, we were going to do hill repeats. 20 seconds up the hill as fast as we could, then walk back down. Repeat 5 times. Then an easy run back to the store.

Hills do not equal an easy run to me. In any way. For some reason, no matter how slow and "easy" I take it, hills just sap my strength. I know it's most likely just a lack of training, but having the "easy" bit contain a hill scared me.

It wasn't a group run so much as, there were a bunch of people running around doing the same thing I was. Right off the bat, most of the runners were off and way ahead of me. I managed to not loose the pack until the hill of doom, then I fell in with another "slow" runner. She had a garmin on her wrist, and after talking for a bit, I told her I was just going to keep my eye on her so I knew when to walk for the repeats.

Turns out she teaches exercise classes, so she was the perfect person for me to fall in with. She'd count down each interval "One minute!" "30 Seconds!" "10 Seconds!" "And WALK!" It was kinda awesome.

The intervals went really fast, having someone to talk to during the walk breaks really helped the time fly.

Then it was on to the hill repeats. I actually didn't do too badly on these. I was able to just kind of dig in and power up the hill for a count of 20. I would usually be just about out of steam by the end of the count, and really enjoyed the walk break going back down the hill. I was really starting to feel it by the last repeat though, so me and my new friend started the "run" back to the store as a walk.

After recovering for a bit, we kicked it back up into a run, just as one of the trainers caught up to us. We were able to chat with her a bit, and I was able to ask her about my calves. She watched me for a bit as I ran, and told me I run entirely on my toes. My heels almost never hit the ground. No wonder my calves hurt. Any increase in milage is putting strain almost entirely on my calves. She suggested I try to work on midfoot striking, just to roll me back a bit off my toes. She did say the rest of my form looked good though :)

I took off right after we finished the run, since I had to get home, shower and get dressed for work. It actually worked out well. I was amused when I got home that my daughter was still asleep (I had woken the Hubs up when I was getting up and mobile.) I even got to work a little early this morning!

I'm really happy I got my run in early this morning too, because the heat is supposed to be killer later today (in the 90's with high humidity.) I'm still not a fan of waking up in the morning, but I may be a morning run convert now...I can totally see why Meg likes them so much!


4 comments:

  1. Nicely done! I am still working on the whole waking up early to fit my workouts in.

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  2. HA that is awesome! Look at you, Ms. I-Don't-Run-in-the-Morning! What an awesome run!!!!

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  3. Awesome job! I prefer to run in the am too but do I get to do it ??? LOL Rarely! I'm enjoying my sleep too much! :D

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  4. Nice work!

    I was traveling for the last few days, and on Sunday morning I found myself awake in the hotel room at 4:45 a.m. ... so I went down to the gym and ran a 5K on the treadmill, before my planned 7:00 a.m. zumba class. Who are we?

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