So yesterday evening I went out for my run. I decided to do my new, slightly longer length of run.
I decided not to worry about time, but to focus on not stopping at all, keeping my breathing regular, keeping my shape really good, and seeing if I could step up the pace a bit in the last k, and then again in the last 500m.
Well, I did all of those things **and** I knocked a chunk of time off that distance as well - what a high!! And I did it with the dull pains I've been getting all the time in my lower belly too (Blood test results tomorrow morning. Hopefully they'll come up with something).
A day that started with my waking up at 3.30am and feeling anxious because it's getting close to 11 October BD time again, ended with feeling pretty darn incredible.
My new sofa arrived yesterday. It's all still boxed up as I have to get rid of the old one first to make space for assembling the new one (my house is tiny and has really small rooms). But I did a ton of housework as well to make sure it all looks as nice as possible when it's set up.
This morning I feel great. I had lots of sleep, and dee sleep too.
I'm wondering if I should set myself some running goals? At the moment, I'm just going with getting comfortable with a distance - making sure my breathing is good, my pace is good, my shape is good throughout that distance. And then once I feel I've got the handle on all of that, I'm adding another k onto it and going through the same process. I might drop back down to my previous distance once or twice when I'm at the new distance, but the goal then is just to hammer my way round, as fast as I can.
I'd like to add in a super short distance occasionally (just a mile), but to go as fast as I can at it and not worry about what sort of state I'm in at the end.
And I'd like to add in some very sort of short distances up a steep hill, like a couple hundred metres, and maybe do those 5 or 10 times in succession.
I also feel like I need to do some sort of leg stretches. My hamstrings are super tight after hurting my back quite badly towards the end of all the rubbish that XH was throwing at me (December 2014). I think that would help my stride feel looser - it feels a bit tight at the moment.
Anyway, I had a crazy thought last night...I'm 50 in about a year and a half. Could I run a 10k in 50 minutes when I'm 50? I'm super competitive with myself, so motivation is never an issue once I set myself a goal.
Pros: my own competitiveness, plenty of time to train slowly and thoroughly, achievable distance, reasonable level of basic fitness as a starting point, a definite goal
Cons: no idea how to go about it (for the moment), is it totally unrealistic?
