A little background first. After completing my first 5k race this past weekend, and with two more tentatively penciled into my calendar for later this month, I decided now would be a great time to start training for my next goal. I am shooting for running my first 10k race this Spring - most likely the St. Patrick's Day run, which gives me a good five months to work up to (and beyond) ten kilometers.
It's no secret that I have two areas that will need to be resolved before I can successfully run a 10k race - my heavy foot-striking and my horrible breathing technique. Two separate runners have given me some advice as to how to fix the latter, so I thought I'd begin there.
And so there I was this morning in the chilly 50 degree morning, ready to work on my breathing for the next four kilometers. One piece of advice I'd received from a good friend, who was something of a track star when she attended high school in Germany, involved modulating my inhales and exhales in a certain manner tied to my stride. I decided to start there.
The other piece of advice I'd received was that I would better be able to concentrate on my breathing if there were no distractions, i.e. no music or talk radio in my ears.
So Zeus and I began running, and all my years of sitting zazen flew out the window.
Two things began to happen simultaneously. First, for the first time, I experienced what our run must be like for Zeus, albeit three feet higher in the air - the sound of my shoes crunching in the gravel, the early morning traffic, the cold, biting wind blowing through the trees.
Second, absent the presence of Foo Fighters, Staind, Seether, or even Z-104.5 The Edge blaring in my ears, my mind began to wander. Oh, sure, I could keep track of my breathing...for about 30 seconds. Then I would be distracted by a squirrel chattering at us as we jogged past, or be preparing to greet a runner approaching from the other direction. Then I would begin composing tweets and blog ideas in my head.
In fact, the idea for this post came to me somewhere between kilometers three and four, and I pretty much had it laid out in my head by the time we got back to the car, including the line you just finished reading.
And so I tweeted the above.
However, upon further reflection, I realized that this distraction-less running, or Awareness Running as a yoga buddy has called it, is probably not for me, and is something I will only be doing on occasion, perhaps to punish myself for missing a run the day before or having that extra slice of pizza I knew I shouldn't have.
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| Gratuitous shot having nothing to do with this post - Zeus as a puppy! |
For one thing, while not horrible, my splits were not what I was hoping for on this morning - a morning that proved to be the warmest one I'd run in days. My per-click average was a full 30 seconds slower than I had been running the last week (including yesterday's overdressed, overheated fiasco), which means that at the four kilometer mark, I was a full two minutes behind my usual pace.
I know my breathing won't take care of itself, and it will have to be addressed (and soon), but perhaps I'll begin working on the other aspect of my training instead...
-Steve
October 2012
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