Started off at Blackford Elementary School and ran along the Los Gatos Creek Trail to Campbell and back for a total of 5.2 miles. Normally I run the whole way with the participants in my run group (wave 2), but as I started dropping them, I decided to run my own pace using a 4/1 interval. I felt good and ran pretty hard, but I wasn’t completely spent at the end…just glad to not have to run anymore.
When I got home, I uploaded my GPS info and noticed that I have equaled my time trial time. I ran that as one complete run for 3 miles. I did it in about 36 minutes as timed, but because I ran on the outside of the track, I actually did three miles in 34 minutes. That put my pace at about 11:20/mile.
Today, I did 5.2 miles in 58:12 for an average pace of 11:16, which includes walking every minute and a bathroom break at Campbell Park. So, Jeff Galloway‘s run/walk method seems to be working great!
I also got to ask Coach Kris what I’m doing wrong. Every time she sees me run, she says I need to work on my form, shorten my stride, increase my cadence, etc. But I don’t feel like I have any way to fix what’s wrong based on that kind of feedback. So when she said it again today, I talked to her after the run and asked in general what was wrong with my running and for one thing to concentrate on fixing every time I run. She said my arms and legs are all over the place, so the one thing I can work on is making sure my arms and legs move in a straight line from front to back. That I can do! I look forward to working on that from now on until it becomes second nature.
I also talked with a few more participants. There are so many people on the run team! But it’s my job to meet as many as possible, plus it’s good to break out of my introverted nature and force myself to be more social. One of the conversations turned to the subject of ice baths. Sridhar had run the Portland Marathon despite an injury that kept him from completing the longest training run of the season. He said he actually likes them…probably because they numb the pain. But we talked with his mentor, Ilya, who is moving from marathons to ultra-marathons, and he said what I thought I’d heard/read before–that ice baths help reduce swelling so your joints, muscles, ligaments and tendons don’t get too painful. He also said that he doesn’t do the ice bath, but just sits in a tub of cold water. So I tried that today, too. Don’t know if it actually worked, but I feel fine and it wasn’t that bad. So maybe I’ll add it to my regular training regimen.