Sunday, April 26, 2009

Runniversary

It's been one calendar month since I started running. I'm still climbing the really steep part of the conditioning curve, the part where tangible gains come quickly. Going from 0.1 fitness to 0.4 is a four-fold improvement, even if you're still a huge long way from being a 10. It's fun and very rewarding at this stage. I'm past the point where I hurt for a day after every run, and yet still in the phase where I can see significant improvements from one week to the next.

Geek that I am I'm keeping an on-line log of my runs and heart rate stats. My resting heart rate has dropped from 62 to 52 in the past three weeks. (At this rate it'll go to zero by November, heheh!) I've run 55 miles since I began. Okay, I walked a bit of that during the first couple of weeks, but not too much. Distance is much easier to improve than speed, and I'd still be considered a "penguin" (slower than 10 minutes per mile) by real runners. But it's fun to watch the numbers change anyway. My first run was 3.5 km at 12:53 per mile. One month later I ran 7.2 km at 10:24 per mile. I expect I'll be a penguin for at least another month, but I think I'll eventually bust through that 10 minute barrier.

Look at my new shoes! This was how I celebrated my runniversary, at a running store in Calgary. They are lovely and light and cushiony and do not require any duct tape to make them wearable.

Fiona and I are doing BikeRuns together. She rides her bike while the dog and I run. It works pretty well and forces me to slow down on the uphills, rather than killing myself as I have a tendency to do. She often has to wait for me on the long steep downhill stretches, and that's where I get to really turn on my fairly pathetic speed.

6 comments:

  1. haha - we even have the same colour shoes :)

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  2. asics. My kind of shoe. They're beautiful, Miranda.

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  3. Have you been logging your runs on GarminConnect? That is what DH uses: http://connect.garmin.com/. He's got to nearly 500km of running and 1100km of cycling. (I can't boast my distances, so I'll have to use his. My boasts are totally fitness unrelated at present, mainly the number of books I've read since the little one was born, using breastfeeding as an excuse. :) )

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  4. Beccy I'm logging mine at Runner's World. I don't have a GPS that will talk to my computer, so RW works for me. I just decided the other day I would try to run 500 miles in 2009. Right now I'm at 64.8 in just over a month, so I'll only need to maintain my weekly mileage to make that goal within the next 8 months.

    I loved reading while breastfeeding. I also read aloud to the older kids endlessly while bf. Nothing better!

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  5. Anonymous4:49 pm

    Can you please decide on Km or Miles? ;-p

    I am running about 6.5 min/km although when I did the Sun Run (10 km) the last 1.5 km I was going slowly and averaged 7 min/km overall.

    Seriously, though, it's great that you are running. I'm a big fan myself!

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  6. Bwahaha, freelearners, I'm kind of all over the place there, aren't I? Runner's World, where I keep my stats, defaults to miles, and everyone there talks about minutes per mile, so I started thinking that way, with that 10:00/mile threshold taunting me. My minutes per kilometre started out at about 8:00. Now my faster runs are 6:40-ish, 6:30 if they're not too hilly. I think a 10-minute mile would be 6:12, so I still have a ways to go ... unless I can find a properly flat route to run!

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