A Smashing Good Time

I love smashing my own records. (Hence the title)

Running on a treadmill has been good for me as it helps me push myself to do just a little more than I think I can. I look at the time, and if it's at 19:00 I say, "I can push it to 20:00" or if I feel I've gone as long as I can, but I'm only 2/10 of a mile away from the 2 or 3 mile mark, I push it.

So between those ever-changing mini-goals, and the runner's high itself, somehow I manage to do things just a little different, just a little better each time. Today was a good day in that sense.

I know a few people have been following my progress, like how I went from running 1 mile without a walk break...then 2, etc.

Today, I had originally set my goals to: 1) run for at least 40 minutes without a break, and/or 2) run 3 miles in a row without a break.

*SMASH*
I was over 2 miles at 30 minutes, and as I approached the 40-minute mark, I was feelin' good and knew that I could make it to 3 miles. I hit 3 miles at 43:36 (another record for me), and I realized, "Hey...if I keep going, not only can I hit 4 miles, I can get it under an hour!" So I did. The last few minutes of that leg were pretty tough, but I had come so far, I didn't want to lose that goal.

So I reached 4 miles at 57:50...the entire time at my standard pace of 4.2 mph (cuz my favorite number is 42)...the whole time running without stopping for a walk break. I would have thought it would be a few more weeks before I could run for an hour at a time. Now I know that I can.

And 4 miles is the majority of the 6.2 miles (10k) of the Bolder Boulder race I'll be doing in May. Not only do I know that I'll be able to do it, I'm planning on trying to get into one of the "Running Waves". Those are the under-70-minute waves. I just need to go from a 14-minute mile to just under a 12-minute mile by then.

I'm mixing up my runs a little too, on advice from my trainer. I've got my "long distance" runs like I did today, and then once or twice a week, I do an "intensity" run where I go for high speeds (like 6 or 7 mph) for short durations, with rests in between.