I actually made it through a true maintenance run session today - 30 minutes, alternation between a five-minute jog and one minute of walking. I'd like to say it got easier as it went along but I think I'd probably be lying - I did get a bit of a side stitch a couple minutes in and managed to push through it, and I probably felt my best somewhere around the midway point, but when I was done I was so ready to be done. I came back in the house and inhaled a Gatorade, which I don't think had ever tasted better in my life.
One thing interval training does is cast a light on the way our brain perceives time differently in different situations. The five minutes of running pretty much feels like forever, especially the first couple. I would check my watch hoping to see a number that indicated I was close to being able to stop, only to see that I'd only been jogging for about 90 seconds. Even more so, the walk interval is, as I put in the post title, the shortest 60 seconds of your entire life. It feels like about 20 seconds. I would watch the timer tick over the five-minute mark, slow to a walk, breathe, then look back down and see that the walk break was already half over. It was kind of insane. On Monday I gave up on trying to hold to a single minute for just that reason; today I decided not to cheat and was able to make it all the way. This, of course, is a good sign, with the first long run looming on Saturday morning.
Not sure of the distance today. I just ran to the end of the east-west street up the block and back a few times; MapMyRun has that at 0.8 miles out and back, and I did it either three or four times. Since my pace is around ten minutes per mile and I ran a total of 25 minutes, I probably did three total times out and back for 2.4 miles, plus a smidge extra for the 5 minutes of walking. Saturday's run is three miles. Honestly, I'm pretty sure I can run myself into cardiovascular shape; the real question is (a) whether my legs hold up and (b) whether I can do the right kind of eating and all that. My legs felt pretty good the last couple of days compared to how they felt after my run on the previous Monday, when they hurt basically all week; some of that is probably getting the shoe situation fixed up and some of it is probably better stretching, but either way that hopefully bodes well for the future. I could feel my shin splints today and I'm about to ice them but it's not the kind of pain it was a year ago when I tried running and just couldn't. I also have avoided running on cement sidewalks the last two times out, in favor of asphalt, which has a bit more give and so is better on the knees. I think it's been noticeable. As for eating, I tried the tactic of eating shortly before the run today and it might have helped a bit. I also probably need to hydrate more consistently throughout the day, although it tends to be annoying to do so because so much of it comes right back out and I hate going to the bathroom every 20 minutes like I'm eighty years old. Oh well.
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