I have completed what I consider the training portion of the Couch to 5k program. All of the interval running days are behind me. Now it's all about extending my total run time. Back on Day 1, these long runs seemed impossible. Today, they are more of a challenge to keep a fast pace than a challenge to keep moving.
My main goal today was to keep about a 9 minute pace for the first mile. I wanted to finish it before the 10 minute mark on the podcast. After that, my pace didn't really matter as long as I was jogging. Ended up with a 10 minute mile pace overall. I'm not sure if I could have continued the faster pace for the whole 25, but that's what next week is for.
I changed up my route today, sort of. Instead of going back into my neighborhood after the first 1.2 miles, I turned around and went back to the main road again. That was most of my second mile of running. No memory of the time by then. When I was back at the entrance to my subdivision, I heard the Day 1 voice for the last run so I knew I had about 6 minutes left. This meant I needed to detour a bit because it was only about 2 minutes to my end point for the cool down. So I made a quick left turn to add on about 4/10 of a mile and then made my way back to the end of my route. The voice in my ears came on to tell me one minute left. From prior runs, I knew that it was about 2 minutes from that intersection to my street so I decided to pick up the pace. I didn't quite make it, but I was really close and really happy that I had the juice for that one minute "sprint" to finish off the day.
Total run was about 2.6 miles with an insignificant amount of time tacked to the end. It is amazing to me that 9 days ago I was celebrating the fact that I ran 1 mile without stopping. I really hope I can pull off 3 miles in 27 minutes by the end of week 8. That would put me at Army fitness test pace.
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