Phase II

Today I began phase II of my running. I spent the last 3 weeks just getting into the habit of running again. I have not run far or fast but I have run 2-4 times a week for the last 3 weeks. That was my goal and I exceeded my own expectations. Yeah!!!
Now I begin to get a little more serious. I have a program that will take me from running 5/1 intervals to running a solid 30 minutes. It will take 8 weeks. I am looking forward to it. It is training for a 5k, theoretically I should be running 5k in that 30 minutes. So I thought I should know where I'm starting at. For the last 3 weeks I have not tracked distance at all - not even a little. So I know how far I've been running in blocks but not in miles. Today I set out with my cool new EVO and the Runkeeper app. I like it because it is simple but shows me just what I want to know, how far did I run, how long did it take me, and what was my pace. Simple. It's like the information you would get off a treadmill only you are out in the fresh air. Cool. There is also a map you can look at if you want to. So I started up Runkeeper and headed out. This is Day 1 of my new program and it begins exactly where the other program left off, so I did 5 min run/1 min walk 5 times. It was tough but I got through it. How far did I go?? 2.71 miles. How long did it take me? 43.08 minutes. What was my pace? 15:544 min/mi. I was underwhelmed but I do need to add a little detail. I do a warm-up of ~6 minutes and I did a cool down of ~5 minutes. I also walked for 5 minutes - slow- during the walk intervals . But I stopped and thought about how far I've come. When I started 3 weeks ago I couldn't run for 2 minutes without wanting to die. I also had to fight myself out the door every morning - I didn't want to go. Now I can run for 5 minutes straight and while some intervals are harder than others, I get them all done. I don't have to force myself out the door - it has become a habit. I love it. So everything I was after I have achieved now it is time to build on that success and get better.