Sunday, May 17, 2009

On the verge of 4K

After a bit of extra rest to avoid injuries, I went on a run today. The schedule promised to be tough, with two 4 minute even one five minute session or continous running. I messed up my statistics after about 0.42K because I needed to break my run session to navigate around a few large pools of mud and rainwater. Because I did not want to cheat I wanted to rewind the training mp3 a bit. To my frustration, I broke my Nike+ training session instead.



So I started over, there was not much else to do and I could use a bit of extra warmup. The first part of the run was slow and hard and difficult. My body did not want, but the music kept me going. The strange thing is that the last, most long part was the least painfull. I did not feel my legs working against me anymore so I could run a bit faster. Here's the stats:



In principle I reached the 4k, but it feels a bit like a cheat. And besides, it's not 4k without breaks. But I'm making clear progress!

That huge dip is where I stood still to do some stretching as some muscles in the lower legs were feeling a bit cramped or acidic. I still find it a bit strange that there is no mention on stretching on the 'start to run' podcast. At least the 'start to run' book version covers stretching and I applied a few techniques, it helps a lot.

I'm enjoying Evy's book, and will probably finish it soon. But I'm not quite enjoying 'Practical Ruby Gems', though the idea behind it is good. It contains many examples that are flawed and result in not working programs. That's really something terrible that can destroy your motivation and quite often a reason to put the book back to the shelf to never touch it again. Maybe it's so flawed because it's a bit dated. I'm almost finished with it and hope my new book will arrive in my mailbox shortly!

2 comments:

  1. Great run! Doing a bit of warming-up is good, so great call to start afresh

    You will eventually find that the walking stretches will break up your runs too much and that it becomes easier to just keep running rather than pausing to walk.

    Stretching is important. Take your time doing that in order to prevent injuries.

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  2. I endorse the remark of our dear Count. I was very lazy and did not stretch before. Now stretching every time, I feel better after a run.

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