The first photo is of my Sunday running group....one runner was not able to make it today, so there would normally be 5 of us.
The lady with the blond hair next to me is the one doing the Half marathon with me next Sunday. She is an experienced Marathon and Half marathon runner so will be doing this race to support me with my first Half. I think its very sweet of her, but know I could do this on my own as well, I do find I'm faster and better runner when on my own. I've set out a time I want to run this Half and she said I can go ahead if she cant keep up, I don't have to worry about her as she is not feeling that strong lately ~ but she has fire in her belly and I know will stay with me from the start to the finish...
The next photo is of my friend, Christine...she and I did our first official run together the beginning of this year. Since then Christine's been on holiday, and has been ill so has not had enough time to run, so with all that against her, she has not kept up with my pace in the running department, but she is very strong when I teach her Kettlebell...We only run together on our social Sunday run now.
Today's run was frustrating for me....I have not run with the girls that much the last few months so have forgotten how slow they are. I headed out thinking I would take it easy at around 9km per hour but once out I noticed their pace was around 7.2 - 8, so up the hills to stay with them, I walked. A few times i headed out on my own at a pace of 9km, only to wait for them a little later to catch up. When I saw our 5km time was 38.50 mins, I decided I had to get going otherwise was going to end with a very slow 10km pace.....at the 7.22km mark I could start running on my own as the others had taken another route home...I wanted to do 10, they wanted to run 6km....once we split I had to run....as fast as I could to try make up the time lost....I ran at a pace of 11/12 on flats and up the hills at a pace of 9.5km. I had to push as I could see my 12 km race time I was going to finish this 10km run in.....(1 hour and 12mins ) Thankfully I made up a little time lost...
Once my Half marathon is run I can relax with my running again and not focus as much on distance and time like I am at the moment.....I want to see improvement each time I run....and should have just seen today's run as a social fun run...but am mentally so focused I just couldn't.
I plan to run my Half Marathon between 9.5 and 11km per hour. I will vary my pace according to the road I'm running on the day, but I do not want to drop below 9km per hour. The Half marathon is on road and trail.....My goal is to finish my half within 2 hour and 15 mins....I run this distance the first time in 2 hours and 12 mins...but one just never knows what you feel like on the day so have lowered my time if it need be.
Weeks recapRan ~ Monday 7.75km, Wednesday 8.2km, Saturday 6.2km and Sunday 10km
Total a little over 31km for the week.
I taught one aerobic class on Tuesday
I toned with Kettlebell 5x this last week...Two full workouts and the rest Upper body and abs.
Trained a total of 10 hours
The way I see it, isn't necessarily the way you see it.
It's such nice ladies you run with. All with their own stories which is so inspirational.
ReplyDeleteI remember when I was running with a group. They didn't train as hard or as frequently as me, so I kept improving and they stayed the same. It started to become frustrating to run with them because I just couldn't run that slow anymore. Eventually they all stopped running, but I had to try REALLY hard to just look at runs with them as 'fun' only and a social visit. Better than sitting on my butt for a couple hours drinking tea and eating cookies. Often I would do a separate run on my own to hit the pace/distance I wanted.
ReplyDeleteI usually run on my own and have only ran one race with a friend. We started together but did our own thing. Now I just socially run with a friend from time to time but mostly on my own.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to you, running is such a personal thing. And when you feel like you've really improved it's hard to have someone keep you down.
That's why I always run alone because unlike you I'm a slow runner and I would slow others down and I don't want that.
ReplyDeleteYou did great this week. Only a few more days and then you will rock that half.