Create Running Goals (Part 2)

Now that I have gotten to the point where I can run for 5 minutes straight at my own pace, I realized that I wanted to increase the distance I ran over time. I noticed that I would run for 45 minutes and not really feel winded or tired. l I would glare around the gym honestly just minding other people’s business. I would chuckle at inner jokes I made of various situations and then it hit me. Clearly, this run is not challenging enough because I am not even focused on my run at all. I am running as though this is just a way to pass the time. So I had to kick it up a notch. I needed to increase my distance over the same period of time which meant that I needed to increase my speed over a longer period of time. This is much different than running at 7.5 for 1 whole minute before slowing to a light jog at 3.5 or 4.0 (for me those were consider a very light jog).

So, this bred life into intervals! Oh yay! Sweet interval running. Interval running can be a mixture of uphill/downhill or flat terrain to the speed in which you run. My first interval running was a mixture of speed only. I followed this basic pattern:

1 minute – Walking/Warm-Up

30 secs – 9.0 running

1 minute – 5.0-6.0 running

Then 30sec @9.0 and 1 minute @ 5.0-6.0

I would continue to repeat until time elapsed showed 20 minutes.

Finally, I took a picture of my run to track my progress of the distance traveled during the 20 minutes of interval running. I repeated this process for another week. The reason for tracking is that at first when I started, I could not keep up with running the entire 30 secs at 9.0. or I would extend my minute 5.0-6.0 running for an additional few seconds because I felt winded. It was tough working my way up to fully doing these intervals as written above, but that was the goal set and I intended on achieving it.

In Part 1, I briefly mentioned conditioning. This is where conditioning really comes into play. I did this run so often that it became a part of my regular workout before I did strength training. I considered it the cardio portion of my workout. Workout day by workout day, it became easier. Guess what happened? I was back to minding everyone’s business at the gym. Watching the tv and laughing at jokes made – I truly enjoyed my time at the gym, which is not a bad thing, but it made me realize that I was no longer being challenged. This regimen had become too easy for me again. So, I had to mix it up. I’ll share more about how I mixed it up in an upcoming post.

If you have any questions about my personal running goals, feel free to email me @ lpcounselingsvcs@gmail.com. I’m more than happy to share!