Day 1 of Training is in the books. Here’s how it went down…
Yesterday, my Garmin Watch Coach ( Coach Amy – who BTW, seems super nice after watching the recorded training plan introduction video) instructed me to warm-up for 2 minutes by jogging easy, then run hard for 5 minutes and then cool down by jogging easy for 2 minutes. Piece of cake right? I almost threw up.
Are you the competitive type?
Well, as much as I try to just chill and take it easy, I can’t help pushing the envelope in ways that are probably not in my best interest. Maybe it was because when I started out jogging “lightly” in my neighborhood, I had to pass two neighbors and I didn’t want them to think a 10-minute mile was all I had in me – right?
So my light jog, turned into more of a “threshold pace”, that’s runner terminology for the pace at which your muscles start fatiguing at a rapid rate. Not a good way to start my benchmark run. Plus, it meant that the 5 minutes of “running hard” was going to have to be faster, so I got myself into a predicament by letting stupid pride get in the way. Note to self… remind myself that I am no longer 26 🙂
Anyway, with my breathing elevated (and no easy warm-up), I had to move into “running hard” which was unfortunate because like I said, I already was running hard. Now I had to run harder… for 5 long minutes!!!
To make matters worse, MORE neighbors out walking and waving, while I am beat red, sweating profusely and clearly working harder than I should be. Thankfully, I was able to force a smile and pass them before they could offer to call me an ambulance.
Five grueling minutes later, I was able to move into cool down mode – this time with no choice but to jog lightly. Thankfully, no more neighbors to impress.
And, there it is, in the books, Day 1 of my 20 weeks of training for my March Half-Marathon. How is your training going?
*If you’re wondering what NaNoWriMo is… it stands for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is an annual event that began in 1999 as a challenge to writers to write a novel of 50,000 words in one month! Whew, crazy right? Not everyone uses this challenge to write a novel. Take me for example, I signed up for NaNoWriMo and challenged myself to write one blog post every day for a month and that is what you are seeing in these NaNoWriMo posts!!!