Tuesday, February 3, 2015

Exercise Diary: Week 2's Long-ish Run

So last night I did what I had planned to do with this week's training, and did my 3-mile run on the treadmill while watching Castle.  I didn't even finish the episode since my 3 miles were up and walking seemed boring, but I didn't want to continue running in case I screw up my legs and what not.  Besides, as much as I still love Castle the plot is getting more and more predictable, more so than it is acceptable I think.

Anyway, the run went fine, much to my surprise, and at the same time I wasn't really surprised at all.   I knew I could run 3 miles without stopping or too much struggling.  Granted I was going at a pretty slow pace, and had to slow down a bit (but not walking) about twice in the middle, before gradually upping the speed again.  I hovered my pace at ~4.8 mi/hr, which is probably extremely slow, but I figured since I was covering a long-ish distance at the beginning I shouldn't push myself too much.

I had a normal sized dinner about 1.5 hrs before I went, I even took a small nap before I left for the gym.  My only warm-up was the walk to gym (in deep snow).  It was like every other night runs, and although I had to slow down during the run I didn't struggle too much, physically or mentally, to finish.  Also, knowing that I had to watch an hour-long TV episode as well as running 3 miles made the first 2.5 miles seem extremely.  It was only after that I started to get anxious and my mind kept wondering to the finish.  Maybe the solution is to trick myself into thinking that I was actually doing a much longer run?

My insoles were still bothering me, to the point that I really wanted to stop about 1.5 miles in, and that's where I think I slowed down for the first time.  It wasn't as bad as the day before, but still uncomfortable.  Can't wait till my new insoles arrive.  In the mean time I think I will switch to another pair of shoes.

This was also the first time I didn't finish an entire episode of Castle.  I left before the murderer was even revealed.  I couldn't quite figure out why that is, whether the show got boring, or I was anxious to move on to the next thing (going to lab for a quick set-up and go home to sleep), or I have finally pushed through the treadmill boredom and no longer need a good distraction to keep me going.  The other day I happily watched part of an episode on PBS where Hugh Bonneville was talking about "Midsummer Night's Dream, " and found it extremely interesting.  On Sunday I watched/listened to part of a documentary about fake Egyptian artifacts and the beginning of some show where an Archbishop was interviewed about his life experience.  Either I've become more curious or I no longer need a good distraction.  I've also started to pay more attention to my stride and breathing and posture.  For the past two days that was inevitable since my feet were hurting, and last night I felt slight pain in my right knee at the beginning of my run.  Hopefully that will not happen as often when I space out my runs again.  I think I'm going to yoga tonight, but if not, I think I will try and do some elliptical work at the gym, or something else that's not as stressful on the knees.

No comments:

Post a Comment