Monday, April 19, 2010

WORLD CHAMPION


Less than a month ago, I reached my first goal of running 1 mile without stopping to walk. At that point, I was running dilligently 3-4 times a week, really giving it my all. Then something happened. My life became more hectic with the end of my semester and the wedding approaching, and my motivation to run decreased. I have been just barely squeezing two runs a week in for the last three weeks, and 5 of those 6 runs have been laps around my yard at night (BORING). I decided to run tonight because I don't think I'll have time, but there were a million reasons why the run was going to suck. I'm out of practice, I didn't drink much water today, I ate haphazardly all day, and I'm really sore from playing tennis yesterday. But I figured a sucky run is better than no run, right? Right. 

So, I get out there, and I'm running my dumb laps in my dumb yard, and my mind started wandering which doesn't usually happen. When I snapped back to reality, I hollered at Dan, "How long's it been?" thinking it had been, oh, 3 minutes or so. But then he yelled back, "7 minutes." WHAT? I was like R U FRICKEN KIDDING? That's awesome! I didn't feel winded at all, and my body didn't feel tired or heavy. I joked "What if I could run the entire 20 minutes without stopping?" Because that is my second goal. The longest I've run without stopping is about 10:45.

I started feeling a little winded at around 11 minutes. I hadn't given up at 15. Even when my shoe came untied. I was starting to really feel tired at 17 minutes, but I was like "It's only 3 minutes." Which made me laugh, because I can still remember how big of a deal it was the first time I ran for 2:45 without stopping. 

And you know what? I DID IT!!!!! I just ran for 20 minutes without stopping for a walking break. And I didn't feel awful at the end! I have felt worse at the 1/2 mile mark then I did after running non-stop for 20 minutes today. I am so excited. CHAMPION! I slowed my pace down a little bit, which was the reason for my success, but I didn't have any landmarks to time myself against to make sure I stick to that pace in the future. My guess is that instead of an 8:50 mile, I was running around a 9:30 or 10 minute pace. Which is perfectly fine by me. I think it's better to run continuously for a longer time than to run faster but start and stop. 

So that's two goals down. My next goal is to run for 30 minutes without stopping, and from there I will work on shaving time off my miles. 

I. AM. AWESOME. 

2 comments:

  1. Yay Lindsay! It's because you're now old enough to realize that slower and farther comes before fast! I started around 11 minute miles until my first 5K and then worked on getting faster.

    Congrats!

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  2. Thanks, Maddie! I'm so wise now that I'm 25.

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