I registered for two more 5K runs this past week. I’ll be running one on June 1st and another on July 4th. I think it is safe to say I have a new addiction! Yesterday I ran my fastest mile yet, and while it’s a long way from being fast enough to qualify for the Boston Marathon, it’s still much faster than what I was doing even a month ago. I didn’t actually start tracking my running times until I was a month into my first round of training. I’m not sure why I waited that long, except maybe I found that the more I ran the less easy it was to mentally track my fastest miles. At any rate, sometime during the first week of March I sat down and created a spreadsheet that would help me track my times.
At first, all I concentrated on was finishing my intervals, and I didn’t much care how long it took me. Then I started comparing those times. I started to challenge myself to go just a few seconds faster than last time, and pushing myself just a little harder on each run. And lo and behold, it started to pay off. The first week I was averaging a mile every 17 minutes. Yesterday my average was around 14 minutes, 28 seconds per mile. That, my friends, is real progress!
I think the best part is, tracking my times actually helps me beyond keeping a record. Even though I’m not yet near the times and distances I would need to qualify for Boston, I can see that I’m gradually moving towards those goals. Instead of feeling frustration, I feel accomplished, and that has really helped me to stay on track and keep working towards my goals!
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