Finally I have managed to run continuously for three miles! Having said last week that I would increase my sessions I decided to increase them even further by running five in five days, increasing the running time each day. This meant that by the Friday I was running twenty minutes non-stop. I had no adverse reaction at all and felt good. Well, not good, but certainly not in any muscular pain. My cardio fitness is way down from where it was six months ago so hopefully this will improve over the next month.
To celebrate finishing my return to running schedule I decided to go out for a three mile run on the Saturday morning and then another on the Monday morning. This week I will run five times, three sessions of three miles and two of four miles. Then the next week I will run three sessions of four miles and two of five miles and so on and so on. Hopefully this will ease my body back to regular running as well as improving my cardio fitness. It feels good to be running instead of run/walking which I’ve always found to be more difficult than just running. Perhaps it’s the stop-start aspect of it that grates with me. Also, I find that you look forward to the walking section and see the running as a bit of a punishment whereas when I am running continuously I can concentrate just on how I am running without thinking about stopping. It’s all in the mind!
Talking of all in the mind I’m currently reading a book called Brain Training for Runners. According to the author our brains try to fool us into thinking that we are in pain to prevent the body depleting it’s resources when in fact we can physically run much further. He cites an example of a person who is running a marathon and no matter how difficult it gets for them or how much their brain is screaming to walk or stop or lie down or do anything other than put one foot in front of the other but as soon as the finishing line comes into sight they are capable of putting in a sprint for 200-300 metres. It is interesting stuff but I think it’s going to take a while for me to stop listening to my brain especially if I start to get pain twinges in my calf.
On Saturday my run took me through Walpole Park next to the Ealing Studios. I saw at least half a dozen other runners there and it was pretty early on Saturday morning, about 7am. I’m sure more people are running these days. Maybe it’s because there’s more coverage on the tv or maybe it’s just because it’s sunny and warm. No matter, the more runners the better as far as I am concerned.
Here’s my run from this morning that I took round Ealing
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