Apparently, I'm an Athlete - Who Knew?

And week three begins! I must admit, when I woke up this morning, I was nervous - butterflies in my stomach nervous! - because I was doubling two of my intervals to three minutes of running. It would be the longest length of time spent running to this point and a part of me wondered if I could do it. Was I ready?

My first interval was 90 seconds and the cold and wind made me start to speed up a bit, until I found my stride, relaxed a little bit and concentrated on slowing down so I wouldn't tire myself out too quickly. The next interval was 3 minutes and I just told myself to take it easy and relax into it, which worked! I felt great after that three minute interval and was ready to do the next 90 seconds & 3 minutes. I concentrated on relaxing my shoulders and slowing my stride and before I knew it, I was done with the run. Not bad!

One of the things that really helped me on my two off days was to concentrate on recovery. I read a great blog post the other day about the importance of recovery days, which taught me to really focus on what my body is telling me. On Friday, I mentioned that I've really been feeling sore in my neck, hips and knees, so I took hot baths, used my anti-inflammatories, and loosened up with the heating pad. I've been building up my tolerance of my orthotics, and wearing my Birks. And I'm really looking forward to the day that I feel a little bit stronger!

But according to coach J, I'm already an athlete. I laughed it off at first when he said that - me, an athlete? I feel like I'm still in the couch potato stage! Maybe it's because I haven't run my first 5K yet, or maybe it's because I still can't just go out and run a few miles. But I have gotten up faithfully at 7am for the last 7 running days (just over two weeks) and pushed myself to run first 60 second intervals, then 90 second intervals, and today 3 minute intervals. And this morning, while maybe I didn't leap out of bed, I did get up pretty easily because I was...dare I say it...*excited* to try out my new running tights and see if I could make it through three minutes without keeling over. I could actually picture running a 5k now (though I couldn't get up and do it tomorrow!). So maybe that does make me an athlete. Who knew?