My Running Story
Two years ago I picked up running. Several family members and I trained for the Indy Mini half marathon. I downloaded a training plan and quickly decided it was too easy and ramped it up. My goal that year was to run 10 min miles but over training led to PF and ultimately under training. I finished in 2:16 and it hurt.
Last year I took up triathlon and started training for my first sprint. When I started I couldn’t swim so that was my main priority. Biking and running were less priority. I ran a 24 minute 5K in the sprint and was happy.
When the off season started this year, I began training for Muncie 09. I had wild ideas of doing lots of tempo work, 5K and 10K time trials along the way. Working up to super long runs, etc. Desert Dude stepped in gave me some advice and linked me to the BarryP articles.
A few months back I started from scratch. Got fitted in the right shoes, bought some winter running tights and started running 2 miles everyday. No watch, just cool running. The next week I ran 2.2 miles a day. I ramped up the mileage 10 % every week up till I was running 6 miles a night, with 1 day off a week. Once this got comfortable I started mixing it up a bit with a longer run here and there and some faster short runs.
What has this gotten me?
My easy comfortable pace is 7:30 min/mile
Sunday I ran an 8 mile route in 52:39
Tonight I ran a 5K in 17:52
Best of all, my PF, knee, back problems have all vanished since started from scratch the right way. And, I went from 185lbs to 155lbs.