I have decided to post weekly updates on my half-marathon training. This week's mileage was 3-4-3-7. On the 4 mile day, my dog hurt his paw while chasing after a deer and he refused to go any farther. I had to turn around, while he hobbled home on 3 paws. It was probably a 3 miler at best.
Today I ran 7 miles (technically, I ran 1 hour and 15 minutes, and I figured that was probably around 7 miles) and my legs are nice and sore. I brought my cell phone with me to know how long I'd been running. I don't have a sports watch, so I had to make do. Anyway I kept checking the phone every few minutes and every time it was a disappointment. "I've only been running for 25 minutes? I thought I was almost done!" Seriously, it made the run so much harder. Just like labor. When you watch the clock, time does this weird warp thing on you and makes you feel miserable. So my advice to runners and laboring women: throw away the clock. Time is irrelevant. Live in the present.
I agree with both. Time absolutly makes running AND labor go SOOO much slower. When you have a watch or time peice you look at it...when you look at it, it doens' tmove. Go figure...
ReplyDeleteYep. You're right. I never timed my runs.
ReplyDeleteIf you are trying to figure out how to better gauge how far you are going, perhaps you could drive your routes beforehand. I always drove around to figure out where I needed to go to get the mileage right. It helped me also know how far I had left to go when I was running. My sister and I even drove the marathon course so she would know what to expect as she ran.
I can't drive, because most of where I run is on trails in the forest, or on bike paths...so I am stuck with figuring mileage by time.
ReplyDeleteFirst of all , wow! Thats so far and long to run! Phew!
ReplyDeleteMaybe you could just set some kind of timer? Or would that be just as bad?
I know you are doing this program, but the clock watching sucks, in labor and at work and almost always, huh?
Music? Could you listen to ___ amount of songs and then you would know it was an hour or whatever?
Music is a great idea, but that would necessitate buying a music-listening device!
ReplyDeleteHmmm, I see the problem. How wonderful to have that many trails and dirt roads to run on. I get pavement around here. Maybe that's why my legs hurt so bad right now. :)
ReplyDeleteThat's still the same advice about clocks I would give!
ReplyDeleteBut I didn't practice what I preach. I actually used my cellphone too, for timing my ctx during my solo labor. I enjoyed it! I had never planned to do it because of the time warp you describe. But being alone, with no one else checking my progress or even knowing that I was in active labor, even time became my friend! I was *sure* I'd give birth in the early morning, and I'd tell myself things like "cool, it's 4 AM already!" or "wow, three minute ctx, I'm doing awesome!" She was born @6:38. It's all in the mind?
You could get a pedometer. They're pretty cheap (~$10-$20) and you program it so it knows your average running stride length, and then it'll give you an idea of how far you've gone. I always prefer to run a distance than a time, time gives me no motivation to hurry up. :)
ReplyDeleteMaryanne
I always have a watch...it makes me feel faster. When is your race, and which one is it?
ReplyDeleteI don't have a specific race; I just want to be able to run that far. I hate races. In fact, when I was running cross-country in high school, I think I did worse on races than I did during practice runs.
ReplyDeleteBut if there's a nearby half marathon in about mid-November, I'll do it!
Judit, thanks for your inputs about how watching the clock was enjoyable. Perhaps it makes a difference when you're laboring on your own terms and when you trust birth enough to know that you won't start negative thinking like "oh no, I've been in labor for X amount of hours and I'm only Y centimeters dilated; I can't do this for another Z hours!" hmmm....
You can use the google pedometer that uses google maps to get how long a route is - it's not perfect, but it should give you a close estimate depending on how close you choose to click - the satellite view works the best with trails, because those don't show up on the regular map.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.gmap-pedometer.com/