Grooved to Run

It’s Saturday, so today is one of my “off” days according to the Couch-to-5K plan. But it was 53 degrees out this afternoon, and I really wanted to head out.

I did 3.46 miles in 42:46 (12:21 pace), which may not sound too impressive but that includes a 5 minute warm-up and an almost 20 minute cool-down walk. After the warm-up I ran 1.39 miles in 13:00 (9:22 pace), walked 0.13 miles in 1:59 (15:51 pace), and then ran 0.32 miles in 3:00 (9:26 pace). My cool-down covered 1.26 miles in 19:44 (15:42 pace).

My goal for the workout was to just get an idea of how far I can run at a reasonable pace (i.e. better than 9:39) before I had to drop back to walking. I’m absolutely shocked that I was able to go a full 13 minutes, and I probably could have gone longer. I was really worried about C25K W3 coming up because it includes 3 minute running intervals, but now I’m confident that I can do it.

Tomorrow is Sunday, so I plan to rest up. I’ll be hitting it hard on Monday (weather permitting) as I do W3D1.