Monday, January 3, 2011

Revelation

Over the past month and a half while tracking my training runs more than I've ever tracked them before, I've started to realize something:

My speed and pace need some work!

Since I'm not a natural runner, my focus has always been to finish the race and never give up! In running my first half marathon, I had serious knee issues and it never crossed my mind that I would be able to run every step of the race. Then, in running my first full marathon, it also never crossed my mind that I would even try to run the entire thing. I honestly don't know how people do it! To this day, the longest I have ever run without resting or walking is 8 miles. For me, that is amazing! I don't know if I could ever run a half marathon without stopping to rest or walk. I don't think that is going to be one of my goals...just yet anyway. But I can work on my speed and pace!

In my mind, a good 5K run for me is at a pace around a 10:30 min/mile. This has been my thinking ever since I started running a few years ago. In my first year running, I didn't have a Garmin and I didn't use any online tracking. In my 2nd year running, I had a Garmin for part of the year, but mainly I used it to track my mileage and time. I didn't really worry about pace or the progress I was making throughout training.

As I have gotten farther into my training the past couple months, I have been looking more at my progress and where I've been over time. I use my Garmin for not only mileage and time, but also pace and split times (still wanting to use it for HR monitoring, but haven't taken that step yet). I started using dailymile which has helped me stay connected to other runners, and it keeps me motivated to see each workout/run that I post. I've also looked back on the past couple years and the races I've participated in. I made a spreadsheet with all those races listed, and will add races as I complete them going forward. I had to search online for most of the race results, and I was amazed at how many of them I was actually able to find! Having this list I am able to see my race stats over time. And let me tell you, those race times weren't impressive by any means! What was impressive is that I ran those races and finished, which to me was a definite accomplishment.

As I've gotten a little higher in my mileage, I have noticed that my pace is getting better without me actively trying. That was shown in my New Year's Day run by going 5.3 miles at what I would have previously considered a good 3 mile pace for me! My revelation is that I need to change my thinking on what a "good pace for me" should be. Since I ran 5.3 miles faster than a "good" 3 mile pace, then what could I actually run 3 miles in? I don't know yet. I do know that one thing I'd like to focus on a little more in 2011 is my speed and pace. I need to do some research on how best to do that, but I'm committed to trying. For me, finishing a race is still the most important thing, it's just not the only thing!

2 comments:

  1. I never really thought about speed until this year either. Ive been working on a lot of speedwork & gotten a lot faster. I definitely recommend adding some into your running plan!

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  2. I really need to work on my pace/speed also, but think that will have to take a back burner to working up my mileage.

    I have been meaning to ask you, do you follow a training plan? And if so which one, Heather and I have been looking at a few, since we do most of our runs together we figured we would follow the same one, but we haven't found one we really think is 'the one' thanks for any light you can shine on the subject!!

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