Sunday, December 28, 2008

The Upside to Global Warming

Ok, so global warming scares the doody out of me, but I am definitely enjoying the ability to run outside on December 28th wearing only a pair of thin leggings and a T-shirt. I wore an Under Armour long sleeve base layer, but regretted it around the 1.5 mile mark because I was SOOO hot.

High (and low) points of the run:

-3.25 Miles
-Mile 1 pace: 7:41 (whoa! That's NOT jogging!)
-4 killer hills
-2 long, gentle slopes
-Winded around 1.5 miles and muscle fatigue (might have been that 7:41 first mile)
-Walked up most of the ginormous hills
-Fibular head pain around 2.5 miles...stopped for a stretch and continued to finish the run.

I was trying to focus on "gliding", as my loving Sista has instructed me to do. I was thankful that Christmas allowed me to spend some time with the family, and I was able to talk to my Sista about running.

I have determined that all of my knee/leg ailments are due to my running form, not due to a permanent injury of any sort. I don't take a lot of comments to heart, but I've decided after 5 years of running to listen to the fact that everyone picks on me for "prancing" when I run. There's just too much upward motion in my gait, so now I'm trying to learn how to just stay low and go.

My Sista tells me to just think about going "forward".

I'll just keep practicing. It seems to help when I concentrated on "heel, toe" as I run. Any of you more experienced (and much faster) runners out there who want to pipe up and lend some suggestions, I would really appreciate it.

My Sista also suggested to join a running group in my town, and I'm going to research that tonight. As much as it makes my bootie tighten when I just think about joining a group, I am going to have to go out on a limb (or two) if I really want to become a better runner (and not walk the 9.3 miles to The Boilermaker finish line). Man, that would be a long walk.

For some reason, the idea of running with people who are way better than me conjures up images of being the 11 year old fat girl in gym class waiting to be picked for dodge ball teams.

RUN AWAY!!!

So...I clearly have a few issues to work through on that one.

In any case, I ran today, and I'll run tomorrow at lunch. The goal for January is to run at least 50 miles. If I can do more, awesome...but I'll do at least 50 miles.

OH! And today, I christened my Boilermaker Training shirt. And I was so proud to sweat in it for the first time.

6 comments:

  1. The thought of actually joining a running group makes me twitch, too. However I did find a few running partners that weren't so intimidating. And if you can run a 7:41 mile, you are definitely NOT slow :)

    Thanks for stopping by my site - and by looking at your December archives, I'm intrigued by the number of posts about me! :) (Or you know, possibly not about me...I haven't actually read them yet.)

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  2. The "other" Gazelle! I think I might have to revise his name now so that he's not appearing to be a Gazelle imposter!

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  3. I tried to "follow" your blog but there is no option to do so. :)
    7:41 is a great mile. I usually run it in 10 or so. We time for miles and a half and that's where I'm 14:34.

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  5. Hi Nidena! There is an option to subscribe to my blog on the right side...it says "Subscribe, I'm fun" =) Then it will add me to Google Reader, and you can also manually add it in your "Blogs I Follow" on your Blogger dashboard page.

    The 7:41 was definitely a great mile...and a total anomaly. The thing is, at this point, I can't maintain that pace for more than a mile. But I'm ok with that. =)

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  6. I just added a "Followers" section to make it easier to follow me. =)

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