First Recovery Week
Posted by Samantha Fugate on Sunday, March 28, 2010
So the first 4 week of my training are now over! And I have to say, that I am already getting very excited about where my training is heading. Before I got serious about my training, I focused on running. I was inspired and helped for a few days when I adopted a retired racing greyhound. But unfortunately the sweet dog that I chose was sick with a parasite infection and she also had pretty serious separation anxiety. Since I only have room and time (barely!) for one dog, I had to bring her back to her foster family. But after running every day with Lemmon, I couldn't stand running by myself. So I started running with my friend Becca Rudey.
Last week Becca and I went for an 8 mile run. As usual, I wasn't paying attention to the splits, but my watch beeps at every mile so that after the run I can look back and see what my mile splits were. But Becca checks her watch every time my watch beeps. So at about 4 miles Becca said "whoa" and I said "ut oh, is it bad?" I felt like I was running a little slow because I felt slightly uncomfortable, but I still felt good. And Becca replied "nope, more like sub 8's." I was shocked. To put this in perspective for why I was so shocked, I have been haunted by the run split from my last race. It was a strange distance race where the swim was a little short and the bike was a little long to be called an Olympic, but the run was still 10k. In that race I struggled to get my run split under 8:00 minute pace. And I lost the race in the run. Now here I am in the first 4 weeks of my build phase and I'm running sub-8's down a dirt road and talking! We ended up averaging 7:47s for 8 miles, which I am super excited about!
I believe that on that day I broke through a wall that I had put up and realized that I can run faster. Since then I have completed two shorted runs averaging 7:39s and I'm hoping more progress will follow. It's hard at this point to get excited about my bike splits because I have only biked outside in Michigan once. But hopefully more success will follow soon. I just need to stay healthy!
Last week Becca and I went for an 8 mile run. As usual, I wasn't paying attention to the splits, but my watch beeps at every mile so that after the run I can look back and see what my mile splits were. But Becca checks her watch every time my watch beeps. So at about 4 miles Becca said "whoa" and I said "ut oh, is it bad?" I felt like I was running a little slow because I felt slightly uncomfortable, but I still felt good. And Becca replied "nope, more like sub 8's." I was shocked. To put this in perspective for why I was so shocked, I have been haunted by the run split from my last race. It was a strange distance race where the swim was a little short and the bike was a little long to be called an Olympic, but the run was still 10k. In that race I struggled to get my run split under 8:00 minute pace. And I lost the race in the run. Now here I am in the first 4 weeks of my build phase and I'm running sub-8's down a dirt road and talking! We ended up averaging 7:47s for 8 miles, which I am super excited about!
I believe that on that day I broke through a wall that I had put up and realized that I can run faster. Since then I have completed two shorted runs averaging 7:39s and I'm hoping more progress will follow. It's hard at this point to get excited about my bike splits because I have only biked outside in Michigan once. But hopefully more success will follow soon. I just need to stay healthy!
