Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Stop me before I run again!!

The beautiful weather that we were lucky enough to have here in southeast Pennsylvania the past week has somewhat subsided. Yesterday was a cold, rainy day. My string of consecutive running days was in jeopardy. I had a phone meeting that ended about 11:45 in the morning and I walked downstairs to get a fresh cup of coffee and realized that the rain had stoped and so I dropped my coffee mug (literally.. I almost broke the thing on the floor) and grabbed my fiveFingers. The run was short (about a mile and a half) and it started raining again about half way though. My legs felt great and the rain felt good.

I am a little concerned about my speed. I know, I know…. Speed is the last of my worries at this point. I should be focused on my new running form and strengthening my leg and foot muscles. But the barefoot running form comprises of short strides and a higher cadence and frankly I feel slow. I haven’t run an exact mileage or timed myself, but I have been running (the wrong way) for years and I know that I am not even hitting the 10 minute mile mark. The reason that I am thinking about speed is that I am looking at some road races in the area. There are a bunch of upcoming 10K, 10 mile and ½ marathons in the next couple months and I have all the confidence in the world that I can do the distance, but I have visions of striding across the finish line in last place. I am trying really, really hard not to overdo it.

On that topic (overdoing it), I am looking at a 7 mile run around Peace Valley Park at lunch in about an hour. I am such an impatient child.. Wish me luck!

2 comments:

  1. First of all - please don't break those mugs. They were discontinued and I love them ;)

    Second - Wehhh my stride is so short. Welcome to my world! Try walking through life doing 3x the work of non-vertically challenged people :)

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  2. .... Yes I know. As the mug was falling and coffee was flying everywhere, my only thought was "Erica will not be happy about this"..

    AND, that's why I took up barefoot running! To get my strides closer to yours! ;)

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