Fartleks

So, I did my two miles tonight, as promised, despite having marched today for May Day and having done some reading (for comps!) when I got home and so not actually heading out until almost nine when the sun was quickly vanishing. The only reason I actually did it is because I said I would.

That being sad, it was a beautiful night and it was nice to run despite the fatigue in my lower legs for most of the second mile.

I ran slowly (25 min for 2 miles), thought Dupont street was never going to come (when I had to run to it midway through the second mile), and then kicked it up a couple of notches for the last few blocks to finish stronger and with my heart rate actually elevated.

As I was finishing at that faster pace, I thought about how good it felt not to be lumbering along. Running slowly can be really boring. And repetitive. But running faster feels good. It also wears me out, so I can't keep it up. But I was thinking, what if I ran faster for certain portions of my run and then ran extra slowly if I needed to to recover from it? It would be kind of like intervals, but less structured--I'd just do it when I wanted to for as long as I wanted to. Good idea, I thought to myself. Maybe this will make things more interesting and also help me pick up my pace per mile.

After my run, I swung by the Loblaws to pick up a few groceries and I decided also to buy a copy of Runner's World magazine. Then I came home and started reading it. I learned a lot. And one of the things I learned was about fartleks. Turns out fartleks was exactly what I was thinking I could do (the psuedo-randomly picking up the pace thing) and they recommend doing it once or twice a week!

So, tomorrow is a no-run day because I have baseball practice (and because I'm supposed to take days off). Monday I'll do three miles and try fartleking! (And if fartleking makes it too hard to complete 3 miles, then I'll let myself walk some of it, but then I'll start running again.)