It's easy to be hard on yourself

[wilmacgh]

I've been trying to up my speed lately to get back to the times I was managing at the Parkrun last year. I got very close in June but since then my times are actually slower! I reckon I need to be doing lap times of 5:30 per km. However on my local run I'm struggling to get much below 6 minutes. I use Endomondo which gives you a voice message every km with the lap time. The best I managed today was 5:48 and I walked almost all of the next k.

So I felt a bit despondent tonight and decided to have a look at the history bit of the Endomondo and setting aside the heady days of the 5x50 I've been managing to keep up the average of about 35k each month I've been doing over the last year or so. Not brilliant and not three 5k runs a week but other things like work and family get in the way.

So I'm going to keep plugging away on the basis that some sort of run is better than nothing at all.

[ThreeBees Graduate]

"...some sort of run is better than nothing at all."

Absolutely! Surely the important thing is that you're still out there, still going even in the midst of a busy life. It's good to have something to aim for, but in the middle of aiming for it don't lose sight of what you're achieving along the way!

[greenlegs Graduate]

You're keeping active and that's good! Not sure how warm it has been where you are, but the heat here has made it much harder to run, and less practice makes it harder to keep up the pace. And we're not getting younger!

I'm a fair way of where I was in 5x50 too (I once ran a mile in just over ten minutes, which I wouldn't believe if I didn't have the Garmin record - it took me 14 today), but I'm not that bothered, because I know I've been doing less, so I've moved the target to a more realistic one for now - to be active every day for at least ten minutes. If I do more, that's great, but I feel successful if I've done a little bit. Day five today.

[Oldgirl Graduate]

Hi Wilma don't be so hard on yourself, it could have been me that had written your post though. Last summer I was sailing along on a high, my parkrun times were good I was getting out doing 5 & 10K's but I think I pushed just that bit too hard and ended up with two injuries one about 6 weeks after the other, its just not worth it. I now run to enjoy myself, I don't worry if my time is slow, I'm always pleased if I manage a bit faster but for me its not a must. I think back to 3 years ago when I couldn't run for a minute and now I can run for over an hour without stopping. Every run is one run more than I was doing 3 years ago, that has to be good, right!?! So keep going, if you are managing 35K a month that sounds pretty impressive to me, if its not as fast as last year, so what, just ask yourself, 'Did I enjoy it'? If the answer is yes then your a winner in my eyes.

[wilmacgh Graduate]

Thanks folks. I needed a bit of mutual support.