And I ran….

I’ve had two days in a row of really good running. I was almost dreading my running clinic tonight because I ran 5k on Saturday, walked 5k on Sunday morning and then ran 6k on Sunday afternoon and although my legs weren’t hurting, I was definitely feeling them.

The run yesterday was really good, it was 3k uphill and then 3k downhill along the rail trail. Gorgeous scenery, great company and beautiful weather and I just went at my own pace, taking a 60 second walk break when I needed to and not following any set schedule, I think I ended up with 4 walk breaks in total, the last one being only about 30 seconds so I could refresh my mouth with some water.

Tonight’s run was quite short in comparison, only 2.44 k along a different part of the rail trail with my running clinic. I knew at the outset that we were only doing 2 sets of 10/1 and maybe at the most 3, so I decided to push myself a little harder than I would if I had known I had to do 5k and it felt really good. The last 200m or so I really had to push to sprint for the end but I did it and felt really amazing. 

By no means was I “fast” but it was a good pace for me and it felt sustainable. I don’t think I could have done it for 5k, but I didn’t have to tonight. I remember last year, I met a runner in line somewhere and we were talking about increasing pace and he said the key was to run shorter distances faster and then increase that distance by 10% every two weeks. So if I want to run a 7 min/km I should run one kilometer at that pace for 3 times a week for two weeks then do 1.1 km at that pace and so on. He said it was a guideline and I could increase the distances or shorten the time as I went along but he said running 5k at the same pace over and over wasn’t going to increase my speed as it’s harder to increase speed over that distance if that’s my longest distance. It made sense at the time and I did start to do it last Fall before I hurt my hamstring. It’s definitely something to explore again, I think.

Running along the rail trail and sweating! I know I look like I was in pain, but I was looking into the sun and trying to run, take a picture and not drop my phone!

Looking down the trail. I tried to get a pic down the side of Hamilton mountain to show how high up we were, but I should have done it whilst walking – I will next time!