Fitness 101

Posted by: quarterlifegirl on: January 7, 2010

• In: Running
• 1 Comment

So last night was my first experience with my running training program! I’ll be referring to it as “Fitness 101” from here on out, since that’s it’s official name. Anyway, it was very interesting. I arrived ahead of time, had time to change my work pants (I’d worn a tank top under my clothes, so I was able to change shirts in the car….I wore 3 in total…it was cold!), pick up my packet, browse through it, then leave my bag before walking out to meet the group.

It was a pretty darn big group. I’m assuming over time the group may dwindle a bit as people lose motivation, but we’ll see. We did a group warm up (which was really funny since we all did it on a sidewalk in the middle of a busy shopping area. Drivers and pedestrians were staring as we shuffled and kicked and did all sorts of goofy stuff.), then we divided into groups. As I may have mentioned before, all groups would be doing an interval of running, followed by a 1 minute recovery walk. So we divided into the 3 minute runners, 2 minute runners, and 1 minute runners. While they said that you could always fall back in the event you start off too strong, I decided to stick to the one-one’s.

Since it was the first day they decided to just do a total of one mile. All in all, it was good. I didn’t feel too winded until the end when our leader “challenged” us a bit and made us run faster for the last interval. However, she made it clear that she had been taking it easy on us, and eventually we’ll be running at a 12-13 minute mile pace. (Keep in mind we’d been running a 15-minute mile pace, which is what I typically do.) When the other groups got back though, I kind of felt cheated….they had done two miles, while we only did one!

So, while I enjoyed myself, I’m totally doubting what I should do for the next session, let alone my overall “strategy”. I’m afraid that if I stick to the one-one’s there’s the possibility that I’m going too easy on myself, and won’t improve as much as I could. (And I may not reach my full-5k-run goal, like I want to.) However if I go with the two-one’s, that may be too much, and as our distances increase (and speed, apparently) I won’t be able to keep up. (And while they said we could easily fall back if we find it’s too much….I’m kind of scared of doing that because of how DARK it was!)

I have until Monday to decide what to do. In the meantime, I think I may go for one run and test myself running for two minute intervals for a mile and see how I feel.

Any advice?

Side note: I didn’t wake up for my workout this morning. In my half-asleep haze I recall convincing myself it was ok since I ran yesterday, and this morning was supposed to be a leg workout. I’m a little disappointed. However, if I work out this evening I don’t think I’d be in shape to work out in the morning….so I don’t know what to do!

Actually, I take that back. I think I figured out what I’m going to do. Tonight: legs and back as I was supposed to do in the morning. Tomorrow morning, if I feel up to it I’ll do Kenpo, as scheduled (which involves lots of kicking and whatnot….so we’ll see how I feel). Otherwise I’ll do Kenpo the next day and skip my “resting day”. That way I’ll be back on schedule!