W1D3 and W2D1: Going the distance

I meant to post this yesterday, but my internet was down (thanks, Comcast!). So here's how yesterday's run went:

Where: Lakefront trail, going north up to 47th Street
Distance: 2.68 miles
Duration: 42:27
Average pace: 15:50

What went well:

For this workout, I decided that I would try running two workouts consecutively. Realizing that it'll probably take 90 minutes to run a 10K, one of my biggest challenges will be getting used to being physically active for twice the amount of time that I am now. The last thing I want to do is to run the 10K, get to the halfway point, and then not have the momentum to keep going. So my plan is to gradually increase my distance and time during the training runs over the next few weeks.

Unlike last time, I actually remembered to stop my RunKeeper app at the end of my workout! Last week, I was so tired once I got home that I accidentally kept it going for another 15 minutes before realizing that it was still on. Oops!

Another positive change is that I could feel my energy level going up. When the run periods came during the workout, I knew that I could conquer them, and by the end, I even felt like I could push through for longer before reverting back to walking.


Lessons learned:

I have to play around my 10K Runner app to see how switching to other apps during a workout affects its ability to stay on. Yesterday, it seemed to stay on whenever I switched to RunKeeper, but then when I briefly switched over to the photo app, it shut itself off, even though I thought that I had paused it. I was about halfway through the W2D1 workout and there was no way to restart it from where I had left off, so I sort of freestyled the rest of the run. I was able to check off a box in the app to indicate that I had completed it, but I wonder if there's some way to recover a run that was already in progress.

Additionally, for next time I'm going to change the way that I use RunKeeper to track my stats. My stats for this workout include some of the 5-minute warm-up and cool-down walks, and now I'm seeing just how much those walking periods are slowing down my overall average pace. I don't actually see myself running for such a long period of time during the race, so I want the stats to reflect what I actually did during the main part of the workout.


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Finally, for those of you who run along the southern part of the lakefront trail, please make sure to read this article about some recent robberies around 47th Street. It's scary to think about this kind of thing repeatedly happening so close to home, so stay safe out there.