One Clydesdale’s Journey

Okay, I know that is an oxymoron, but bear with me here for a second or two and let me explain.

In working on this training plan Shelly got me from Runners World, one of the things that it makes you do is run at a pace slower than normal based on the info that you give it when you setup the plan.

At first this wasn’t an easy thing at all; the mile pace that it was asking me to maintain was only slightly faster than my walking pace. But, figuring that they know a thing or two about training people to run long distances, I thought what the heck I’ll give it a try.

Much to my amazement, I’m starting to see some improvement. I’m not quite able to maintain the exact pace that they setup, but I’m able to get close to it. And in doing so I no longer need to take a walking break during my runs; this has resulted in my 5k training times to be only slightly slower than what they were before.

Okay, I know that slightly slower is not faster like I mentioned in the title. But here is the kicker, I have energy at the end of the run to do just that; kick!

And at the end of each run I’ve been feeling stronger than the previous one. I’m still only doing my kick for the last .2 of a mile, but if I can keep feeling that much stronger each time that I would mean that I could start the kick sooner and see an improvement in my time.

At least that’s my theory.

But no matter what; if I can keep getting stronger as I add to my distance, I should see an overall improvement in my time for those longer runs.

Later,
John W.
A Clydesdale in training