Just back from my local park having finished week 7 day 3 and how far did I run in my 25 mins? Well your guess is as good as mine! From the very start of week one, day one I decide that I had to dress the part, running top, leggings, running socks and if you have read my last post fancy running shoes that were a vanity purchase that I now have put down to just that, vanity. But looking like a runner really helped me gain confidence as someone who had never run before even if I had to wait until the end of week 5 for 'Laura' to agree with me. I guess only time will tell if my Garmin 610 will prove to be a vanity purchase, today it was simply an annoying one and I have no one to blame but myself.
I arrived at my local park which at 11am on a Sunday morning resembles the M25 of running with a dangerous mix of dogs with no sense of direction and little children on bikes in the same situation. I remember an early piece of advice from 'Laura' about looking ahead into the distance which is fine at night but today would have proven lethal to me and to numerous small children.
Even at my age and stage of running I get excited and simply cannot wait to get started and the more technology I surround myself with, Garmin, iPhone, headphones, new running music (more on this later) the more likely I am to forget to start something and so it proved today. I was well into my 5 minute warm up walk when I realised that the Garmin needs several minutes to lock on to a satellite to start to measure how far I have run. When 'Laura' told told me that my five minutes was up and to get ready to run I automatically pushed the timer button and set off and it was not until my wrist failed to get 'buzzed' by the Garmin at my usual 1km spot that I noticed that it had not locked onto the satellite until well after I had started running. I was surprised by how upset this made me feel, not angry but upset, how would I be able to prove how much further I could run today that I could two days ago? Suddenly, it dawned on me - I have become a competitor!
Running in the day time in my local park (soon to become the scene of my first 5k), is something that I have not done for several weeks as I now tend to be away at weekends and have the pleasure of running along a seafront. My skills at being able to predict the direction of travel and possible collision speeds of dogs and small children were clearly a little rusty so a lot of last minute swerves were called for which did not help my growing sense of disappointment because even though I was having to make more moves than Judy Murray on 'Strictly' I knew that I was running faster than ever before. But just how much further would I go today?
I was running in the day for the first time whilst wearing the Garmin which lead to making the rookie error (at least for me) of looking at my watch to check the elapsed time. In a flash I realised that in the past I had always relied on Laura to tell me how long I had run for, she knew what she was doing timing wise, I didn't. Time was starting to stand still - not a good thing.
Why was I running at a faster pace? Well back to my love of gadgets and doing new things for each run. I had downloaded some 'running' music. A concept that I was blissfully unaware of until a few days ago. I had started the programme with no one except 'Laura' having had a 'Specsavers' moment which went on for several weeks as I fail to notice the music icon on the app. Having discovered the icon I was stuck with the limited selection of music I already had on my phone. My musical journey came to a self imposed halt in the mid 70's and whilst the 'Eagles' and 'Crosby,Stills and Nash' have been the soundtrack to my youth they are hardly 140bpm! So today I ran to a new sound track and whilst I cannot comment on it as music, listening to music with a beat of 140bpm makes you run faster - fact.
So thanks to my new soundtrack I went at least 500 metres further in 25 mins than two days ago, my Garmin will deny it, but then it was not counting, I was - honest.
rest day but wanted to run.
Rubbish day, frustrating run
A lovely day for a run and a 10k PB
Gorgeous day for a run
Test run. I really have seen the light. Decathlon run light
