I wish I knew why I keep taking these post-run selfies. Maybe it is just the adrenaline and good feels from finishing and still being able to walk to my car. Not sure.
My right knee was jacked up after the 3rd day in week 1. I had felt so good during all of those intervals that I decided to really push the final interval which proved to be more than my body was ready for. I paid for it. It felt like there was a giant band inside of my knee that pulled as tight as possible. I pushed the start of week 2 back a day just to give me a little extra time to recover. As I sit here after week 2 is finished, my knee feels volumes better. Still not 100%, but good enough.
C25K Numbers
I was really pleased with how the second week went. Right now, these training days are still intervals where the most I ran at once was a minute and a half (day 3).
During the minute and a half intervals on day 3, I felt pretty winded and it was the first time since starting this program that I wanted to look at my watch to see how much longer I had to run.
When I looked down at my watch, the number in the “pace” field totally shocked me. It was a number I had never seen before when running like that. Being a touch over 7:00/mile pace, I knew that was the reason I was huffing and puffing. I was simply running way too fast. On the final interval, I brought the pace down a notch to something that felt more managable. Even then, when looking at my pace on my watch, it was too high. Just not worth pushing it too hard right now and risking messing my knee up even more than it is. I backed off just a little and the final interval felt volumes better. At least now I have a better handle on what pace is good for me. And that pace is still at a good clip, much faster than I was able to run when I was running on a regular basis years ago.
Race Predictor
I asked a friend of mine who uses a Garmin about the Race Predictor data and if she felt it was accurate or not. Last week, my Garmin estimated my 5K time to be a little over 27 minutes. I expected that time to be closer to 30 minutes, maybe over, the more that I log running data. But oddly enough, it is getting faster. My friend said that she didn’t look too much at the race predictor data, but she felt it was actually close to what she was able to run a 5K in. Maybe this thing is spot on after all.
Given how I am wired, it is really difficult to not zero in on things like my pace and this race predictor time. They are great tools to have but I need to remember that they are averages and predictors only. They cannot take into consideration anything outside of what data has been recorded. Race day might be entirely different.
I am still sticking to my guns and holding onto my original goals of finishing this training program and running a 5K without stopping and not trying to crush a new PR.