Day 41 - Only 47 Days Left Until the London Marathon

Hi,

I started out today’s run very skeptical. That said, my overall physical condition improved greatly overnight. The ice and ibuprofen must have done their job. Even then, I had that feeling where you know you’re not quite better and feel somewhat fragile.

Backing up a bit, I started my gym membership today at Gold’s. I was expecting the whole sign-up process to be very quick. It took almost 45 mins. The guy helping me was great, showed me around, very personable, talked me through all the options but took a long time doing it all. This is an important detail because I had dinner plans at 8pm with Elise and Blake. I needed to finish my run by 7:30pm to allow enough time to shower and get to the restaurant. I got to the gym at 6:20 with only 3 miles on the agenda. I thought that would be plenty of time. After 45 minutes getting setup and then changing, it was already 7:15pm.

Back to the beginning of my run. I was starting slow based on my state of being but was heavily pressed for time. After a minute or so, I decided to just go for it.

…another side note…I was in Gold’s Cardio Theatre which is one of my new favorite places to run. They have a huge room of treadmills, elliptical machines, bikes, etc. with a movie screen and the lights down extra low. This will be the only exception I make when it comes to my hate for treadmills.

I ramped the treadmill up to a 6:50 pace and focused on my breathing. The movie (The Killers) was a helpful distraction but after 9mins, even with good breathing, I was feeling the burn. I upped the speed again to drop into a 6:45 pace, held that for awhile and had to start backing it off. Closer to the end of the run I was trying desperately to get my time back into an average sub-7 minute pace but my lungs wouldn’t carry me there.

Although I didn’t break 7, I did set a new time PR.

Stats: 3 miles – 21:32 time – 7:10 pace

Look forward to breaking 7 in the weeks to come. I haven’t shared this publicly before, but I have a 5K goal after my marathon pursuits. I want to run sub-20 5Ks. Fast enough to place top 10 in a couple of races. I’ll be the chunkiest guy in the top 10, guaranteed.

~RunFlickRun~