🏃🏼♀️ I had a fun run this morning trying very hard to run even slower than my usual tortoise 🐢 paced speed, and I have to say it was a really deliciously bouncing fun run! 🎾
🛌🥱This morning I had woken up with a lot of Gremlins 👹 coming for tea (my mnemonic hook 😂), or rather coming with the iced lemon water 💦 🍋that I now usually have in the morning. There was the headache 🤕 Gremlin, tiny but noticeable sitting at the back of my head. There was the hot 🥵 Gremlin, telling me it’s already to hot to run, even at 7am. There was the husband Gremlin suggesting for us to compete in a Sudoku race before getting up. 🧩
I batted all these away, not easily but tricked as after stepping to the bedroom window, waving my arms outside to test the temperature, I thought ‘I might as well’. 💪
I donned my two tank tops 🎽🎽with phone holder vest in-between, and first put on my short leggings 🩳, to immediately change into long leggings, as I imagined the nettles 🌱I was going to have to pass. But sleeveless tops proofed to be a great choice, making me feel 🌬breezy and cool on this hot morning.
So out the door, music on, 🎧 and then had to chose what to listen to. As I am trialing the Nike Training Club App, it was a good moment to tick off one of my saved guided runs in NRC, which then also appear on the NTC App. So up on my list came either a speed run or Coach Benett with a 42 min long run. Coach Benett is my new pal, after a rocky start to our friendship. And speed run sounded too intensive anyway, as I was looking for a recovery run after a sweaty 6.5k on Monday.
So I thought, how about I use the 42min long run for an ultra slow recovery run on a route that usually takes me 32-35 minutes. This meant I had to very consciously run even slower than my usual slow snail 🐌 pace. And yes, I found out that that is possible!
Putting on my Spotify playlist, it worked beautifully! The bounce was there, forefoot strike assured, breathing through the nose even whilst going up the hill! Birds singing, trees shading me in the rising heat! Then, an energetic walker passing me threw my mind into momentary gremlitic spins of ‘too slow’, ‘what will they think’?! 👺👺 But Coach Bennett kept twirping into my ear to run even slower, to coach myself, to have a fun, relaxing recovery run! And I did! 🏃🏼♀️🏃🏼♀️🏃🏼♀️
I was still sweaty by the time I neared home, but almost perfectly timed I ended up running the last 90 seconds around the garden. 🌳🌷🌼🥀Of course the coach couldn’t stop chatting immediately, so I ended up running around some flower pots a few times, to make sure the app ticked this run off as complete!
But finally he was done, and so was I. A great short run, actually taken at such an extreme slow speed it really felt like cruising. And that was a great experience in itself!
May everyone find their inner snail. Happy slow running everyone!
Tips needed for slow running
You CAN run TOO slow!
