Overall, a good end to 2010

Today is my Friday! Our office usually gives us two days off for Christmas, but since the holiday fell over the weekend, they gave us one day for Christmas, and one day for New Year's Eve.  So today was my Friday.  YAY!

I've had two particularly good runs this week.  So after each I've taken some time to reflect what made these runs better than the others.

1. My goals

I tend to set some pretty terrible goals for myself, runningwise.  For example, I'll head to the gym after not running for a couple of days and say "oh I'm gonna run for 40 minutes non-stop"  or "I'm gonna run 5 miles today non-stop."  For me, the first mile is always the toughest, both mentally and physically.  But once I get through that first mile, I'm ok.  However, when I'm still in the first mile, I start thinking "omg, I can't do this for 4.5 more miles," and I doubt myself, making it harder to keep going.

However, the past two runs I've set realistic goals for myself.  Tuesday morning I got up and ran before work.  Because time was tight, I set the timing and 25 minutes and just had myself go.  No promises to run non-stop.  Once I was about .75 miles in, I evaluated how things were going and saw that 2 miles was a realistic option for me.  I ended up running the whole time without stopping.  However, if I needed to, I was prepared to stop and walk.

Today when I ran, I updated my pace a bit from Tuesday.  Because I upped the pace, I told myself that if I needed a short one or two minute walking break between miles, that was fine.  And that is what I did.

• .75 miles - moderate pace
• .25 miles - fast pace
• 1 minute 20 seconds - brisk walk
• .75 miles - moderate pace
• .25 miles - fast pace
• 1 minute  30 seconds - brisk walk
• 2 minutes - moderate walk

Not putting so much pressure on myself really helped me to keep going.

not actually my feet - source

Breathing

Breathing when you are running is different that how you breath the rest of the day.  At least it is for me.  When I don't focus on my breathing, I seem to take in a lot of quick, short, shallow breaths.  As a result, I never really feel like I have the oxygen and energy to continue.  However, this week I've really focused on concentrating on breathing.  For me, its four counts in, six counts out.  Is it normal for my exhale to be longer than my inhale?  For some reason I thought they were supposed to be the same length, but that hasn't worked for me yet.  This 4/6 count seems to work the best for me right now.  I also think focusing on my breathing and running, and not the numbers on the treadmill screen in front of me, has  helped a lot.