March Road Race

It’s been a week since my last road race, which went pretty well. I set a PR which was over 4 minutes faster than my last race. Since I’m training to run my first 16K race this July, I decided that for this race I would already start practicing going slow during the first part of the race, picking-up speed towards the middle portion, and trying to finish strong (or at least minimize walking during the latter part of the race).

Almost as soon as the race started, I discovered just how difficult it was to restrain myself from picking-up my pace when everyone else was zooming past me. All through the first third of the race I had to constantly convince myself that a lot of the people going past me would get weary midway through the race and I would finish ahead of them. It helped that by the time I was finishing the first third of the race I passed some runners from my group who looked ready to pass out while I had barely broken into a sweat. I ran straight at a pretty steady clip for the first 5-6K of the race but decided to slow down to a walk after that because my legs aren’t used to running straight for more than 30 minutes and I didn’t want to push it when I still had quite a way to go. I forgot to wear a watch during the race so I’m not sure exactly how long I ran straight. Trouble started a bit past 7K when my left knee started to hurt. I had to slow down to another walk until the pain eased but it returned almost as soon as I started running. So much for finishing strong. I had to finish the race at a run-walk combination. But at least I set a PR, so all’s well that end’s well. This is also the first race where I didn’t stop to drink at any of the hydration stations but instead drank from my hydration belt. I’m sure this helped cut down my time substantially.

As part of my 16K preparation, I’m planning to increase the distance of my weekly long runs by 1K every two weeks. Easier said than done though because I missed my long run for this week. Sigh. I was able to do my weekday runs this week and would’ve done my long run this morning except I woke up with a scratchy throat so I decided to forego the run. I find it harder to wake up for runs during summer than during the latter or very early part of the year when the weather is cooler. During summer, I have to hit the road by 6:00-6:30AM because it gets hot very fast and since I got so dizzy I started seeing spots in front of me while running two summers ago, I’ve made it a point to stop running once the heat kicks-in which is at around 7:30AM. From December to early February, I can start a long run at 7:30AM without having any problems. I’m also likely to miss my long run this coming week because I’m leaving for a mountain climbing trip on Friday evening. I’m just hoping that with my erratic training schedule I can still level-up as planned this July.

The Road Less Traveled

I’ve decided to follow the advice in the running book that I’m currently reading (Runner’s World’s The Complete Guide to Running) to focus on increasing the amount of time that I can run continuously instead of focusing on the distance that I can cover. This is supposed to improve my endurance and to help me perform better during long distance runs. Since I’m aiming to level-up to 16K this year and to run my first half marathon next year, I figured I should start to follow a more scientific approach to running instead of my current haphazard whatever sounds and feels right approach.

I started last week by aiming to run for 15 minutes straight during my weekday 5K runs. That went pretty well, although I suspect it’s because I’m probably already running at that level. I was also able to do two consecutive 15 minute straight runs during my weekly long run last Saturday. That was my first long run at UP and since I couldn’t bear to circle the Academic Oval until I reached my requisite 10K, I decided to expand my route by going all the way to the College of Science. Surprise, surprise. There is now a paved road right after the College of Science that leads to a rotunda behind the College. The middle of the rotunda is being constructed to become an ampitheater, I think. I was the only person running there but there was a pack of bikers doing laps around the rotunda, as well as small group of birders who were watching some trees. I slowed down when I reached the birders in the hopes of catching a glimpse of whatever it was they were looking at. No such luck though.

This is one of the things I like about running. I’ve discovered places because I’ve literally run into them. I try not to run in circles, especially during my long runs, because the change in scenery makes the run more interesting. And when you’re trying to cover 10K, you end up going into every available side street and path that seems runnable (is this a word?) just to log in the miles. I’ve run in places I never knew existed because I never noticed or had a reason to follow this or that path before. Just goes to show that sometimes, the road less traveled seems less traveled only because you didn’t know it was there in the first place.

In The Beginning…

I’ve been running on a regular basis for close to three years now. I started running because it seemed like a convenient and cheap way to decrease the diameter of my thighs. At that time, the seams of all of my pants were leaving marks on my thighs, which were beginning to look like longganisa encased in cotton. Definitely not a pretty sight.

We had just moved to a new house then and I’d somehow discovered that the portion of our village that was about a kilometre away from our house was largely undeveloped. There were already concrete roads but the lots were mainly planted with either palay or camote. That seemed like a good place to start because there would be no cars to avoid or stray dogs to chase me. So I woke up early one Saturday morning, donned an old shirt, shorts, and trainers and…spent the next hour walking.

I found out that if you’ve generally been a sedentary person, you can’t hit the ground running. Literally. Its something you have to ease into because its not something your body knows how to do. I won’t get into the sweaty, wheezy details here but suffice to say that while the mind can be gasoline-powered, the body definitely runs on diesel.