Monday's run was the first run to officially kick off my marathon training! It was kind of anticlimactic to start it off with an easy 3, but I figured I might as well practice what it feels like going slow, since something tells me these recovery runs will be much-needed as my training progresses. It was pouring rain much of the day yesterday, so I held off my run until the evening, hoping the rain would eventually subside. Thankfully, it did, so I was able to run outside rather than on the treadmill!
One problem I encountered was finding a decent 3-mile route. The shortest loop I can really do in Central Park is 4 miles, and considering I'm a mile away from the park, it hardly seemed worth dealing with 2 miles of city streets and traffic for 1 mile in the park. So I decided just to go on the path that runs along the East River. For much of the time, it runs directly beside FDR drive, so I try to avoid it as I don't think I'm doing my lungs much good breathing in all that exhaust, but at least I don't have to cross traffic or deal with double wide strollers, dogs on too-long leashes, or other crazy pedestrians! I had to guess about where the turn-around point would be to get to a total of 3 miles, and overshot by a bit, but not a huge deal. I also thought that I was running slooooowwwwww, but my time of 30:19 is still an 8:50 pace. I guess because I didn't really "need" that much recovery I was able to feel comfortable at that pace. I'm sure as my weekends get tougher, these Monday recovery runs will get much slower - both because my legs will want to go slower from being tired and I'll get better at gaging my pace.
1 comment:
Yay for marathon training starting!!
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