Up until this point, all of my runs have been 5K or less in terms of mileage. Although I’ve completed a couple of longer walks, my most recent one being three weeks ago when Preston, Riley, and I walked 6.15 miles on the W&OD Trail, we all know that running and walking are not the same thing. They don’t require the same level of endurance, nor do they take the same toll on the body.
With five weeks to go until the Biggest Loser 10K, its time that I start shifting my focus from increasing my 5K pace to increasing my running distance. (I had intended to start at least a week ago, but life got in the way.) Yesterday’s goal was to complete a 4 mile run, which I more than surpassed – Preston and I actually ran 4.65 miles while out on the trail!
Preston and I before yesterday’s run. Can’t you tell we’re married and think alike? We both managed to pull green running shirts out of our dressers without any advance planning!
My plan since signing up for the Disney World Half Marathon has been to focus my long distance training on utilizing Jeff Galloway’s Run-Walk-Run method. His method focuses on combining running and walking in order to conserve energy and reach the finish line injury free.
The first half of yesterday’s run was spent finding the Run-Walk interval that seems to fit my abilities best at this point in my training. Since I’m also still recovering from a summer cold, I found that I had the most energy and had the greatest ability to maintain a decent speed while running for one minute followed by walking for one minute. At this point that doesn’t allow me to maintain a very fast pace (yesterday’s pace was 11:55), but I’m hopeful that by the time I run my first 10K in five weeks that I’ll get my pace down, and that as my training continues that my pace will further improve. For now, I’m more than happy to celebrate the completion of my first long distance run and further progress in my training towards running my first half marathon.
Disclaimer – I was not asked to nor compensated by runDisney or Jeff Galloway to write this post.
