On the rare occasion that I end up running side-by-side with my sister (she’s usually a good 10 ft. ahead of me), I find it hard to maintain my breathing pattern just with the new sound of her footsteps in addition to mine.  I also occasionally pass a house or garage that is playing music (the other day “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” was blasting from a boom box while two 15-year-old girls in bathing suits washed a car, it was perfect) and that messes up my breathing as well, for those short seconds that I’m in earshot of the beat.

It may have something to do with my past as a dancer.  I am an extremely rhythmic person and if I’m into a song I usually tap my foot or move in some other way to the beat.  Even if you don’t notice me doing it, I could be doing something as small as grinding my teeth.  I’ve always related music to movement, and that movement is normally inspired by the music.  So to hear something as intrusive as upbeat rock being delivered inches from my eardrum, I can’t just ignore that pulse and run to my own count.

This upsets me and I am seriously envious of all the runners I pass with the signature white earbuds hooked to an ipod and tucked securely to an armband.  I want to run to Daft Punk and Jimmy Eat World and create running playlists that get me pumped.  But instead I have to run to the soundtrack of the world around me: sprinklers watering a lawn, trucks in reverse, the plethora of cardinals on the Ma and Pa trail, and my own footsteps and breathing.

The thing is, I’ll have to get back to you on what that next goal will be.  Where to go from here?  6/1 seems like splitting hairs, so I guess I’m just going to start racking up the mileage and aim for running 3 miles.  My sister did it today for the second time, so I know its in my near future.

Still plugging away at 4/1 on the running front.  Went to Amsterdam for a couple days and ran twice there under the overcast skies.  The running was uneventful although now I know that city running is not for me, especially when I don’t know how to say “excuse me” in Dutch.  I prefer the little boxes and crawly culs-de-sac of suburban America for my pavement-pounding.  Tomorrow’s run should be interesting, I expect little to no mobility in any major joint areas or large muscle groups for at least 2 days after that yoga class.

After my big night 2 miler, I ran it a few days later during the day.  I still made the 2 miles but it felt like something more akin to childbirth than a leisurely jaunt.  After running in 90 degree heat yesterday, Foosh and I decided that heat really, really, really makes a difference in our performance.  I’m now regularly doing 4 mins / 1 min.  I have the breathing mastered so that I don’t get side stitches anymore.

Now I feel that I need to vary my terrain a little more.  I pretty much only run the same neighborhood route every day.  Its easy for me for lots of reasons, but the main one is its predictability.  I know most people probably think of this as being a negative, that getting bored while running makes it more tedious.  But for me, I know this route so well that I know where the hard parts are and I know where the easy parts are.  This allows me to really pace myself and breathe deep when it matters.  Some days are harder than others (see 90 degree heat) but for the most part I know what to expect when I set out running this route.  There are a lot of plusses to this route (its hard in the beginning, easier in the middle and hard again at the end) but I do feel like I should branch out and do the trail more, which has steeper hills that make me feel like all my insides are going to fall out of my bottom.

But no matter how hard the neighborhood route feels, or how easy, the fact is that I cover more ground every time.  Even when I think I’m jogging slower than most people walk, I still pass the landmarks a good 10 seconds sooner than the day before, and in the past week I’ve gained at least a minute.  That is very encouraging.

The air was crisp and fresh and the sky was black – different from the 95 degree heat I had been running in every day while on vacation.  I guess the flat shoreline terrain and intense heat trained me well because running out of the sun in lower temperatures was much easier.  So much easier that I ran (and I can still hardly believe it) the entire neighborhood route!  That’s right, after approaching the 3.5 minute mark and noting that I felt not the least bit fatigued, I decided to try and run to the halfway point which is up a hill, knowing that if I made it that far that I could make it the whole way.  I ran and ran, keeping my breathing steady and deep.  At the end I checked the clock, hardly believing my eyes.

21:15!

When I slowed to a walk my legs felt funny and rubbery.  I had droplets of sweat on my face but other than that I feel I could have run for 5 more minutes!  The time scared me so I did stop, but it was not even from exhaustion!

On my walk home the gravity of this milestone hit me.  Two months ago I doubt I could have run much longer than 5 minutes at the very best.  I was struggling to maintain my 2 min run / 3 min walk pattern.  I cannot believe how far I’ve come.

I haven’t begun to think about how this will affect my training.  I still plan on using both running and walking some days because obviously this pattern has served me well.  But now that I know I can sail through these endurance runs, I plan on using them more.  I am also aware that the cooler temperature had a lot to do with my stamina.  But only to a certain extent, I owe most of it to my lungs and legs!

I also am not sure how this equates distance-wise.  Earlier today I was told that as a female you need to be able to run 2 miles in 18 minutes to be in the army.  I was told that this was a pretty generous amount of time to run 2 miles.  I also felt that tonight I was running at a pretty average pace.  I was definitely keeping up a brisk jog the entire time, so I feel that I ran about 2 miles.  I may try and clock the mileage tomorrow morning in my car, although it won’t be the most accurate because I run on the sidewalk.  Tonight was so important to me.  Having just chosen a 5k, I am now more confident than ever that I will cross the finish line pumping my legs their hardest.

edit:  I just did a rough mileage calculation using Google Pedometer and my route clocked in right at 2 miles

I’d like to thank Darnay for the last post.  I felt bad after promising more updates and then leaving for an internet-less vacation so he picked up the slack for me.  And I want you to know that I would never title anything “Life’s a Beach”.  Ever.  Other than that he did a pretty good job of disguising his writing style from the jovial sports lingo he spouts every evening at 6 on Kalispell Montana’s KCFW.

In other wonderful yet nerve-racking news, I think I’ve chosen a 5k.  The latest in August I could manage while still happening in the Baltimore Metro area, the River Valley Ranch Run in rural Baltimore County seems to be a good fit.  Its August 23 and I have about 10 Saturdays to go until the big day.  The site has its own 5k training program and after a glimpse I decided that it will be absolutely necessary for me to do big endurance runs on every Saturday up to race day.  This means that this Saturday I will attempt to run a mile.  I’m pretty confident that I’ll be able to do it because I was able to run for 6 minutes after 4 sets of running so I think after just a warm-up walk I’ll be good to go for at least 10… hopefully enough time to cover a mile’s ground!  I’ll probably do this on a clocked path of my choosing, the high school track (although boring and hot, its probably the most accurate), or the Ma and Pa Trail, about which I will freak out because its downhill, and therefore easy, and therefore not a good training trail.

So future notes:

Tomorrow and Tuesday: 3.5/1.5

Wednesday and beyond (until futher notice): 4/1 (no exceptions… side cramps included!)

This Saturday:  first attempt at one continuous mile!

Saturdays beyond:  increasing distances in endurance-run manner.  (Ideally 1, 1.5, 2, 2.5, 3, 3.5… sounds easy enough, right?)

August 23: 5k race

For the time being I posted a picture from a recent run, it’s after the jump. And check out this video from a brisk morning run. Lates!

Check out my stride! And that sweet hat thing. They’re all the rage in North Carolina.

*This post written by Darnay Tripp, who maintains that the title was Lauren’s idea.

What I am slightly worried about is Months.  As in: less than two.  As in: in less than two months I’m to have completed a 5k run without walking.  Its early June.  Next week it will be not-so-early June.  While during my relapse I maintained my running, I did not move forward and I pretty much wasted about 2 weeks of precious training.  I lose sight of my goal and I definitely lost interest in meeting it.

But like I said, I’m back in the game.  Today was my 5th consecutive day of running and I felt a lot better throughout the run.  I had a slight stopwatch incident and decided to run my 4th set at 3.5 minutes and my last at 4 minutes.  Every time he sees me come in from running, my dad asks me if I’ve done 3.5 running and 1.5 walking yet.  I can’t make any promises, but hopefully after next week I’ll be able to answer “yes” to that question.  Then the dreaded 4/1…. I’m sorry but I just can’t envision myself with only a 1 minute recovery walk anytime soon.

Lucky for me, August is a long month.

These are the facts:

Yes I’ve had a bit of a relapse. But for the past two weeks I’ve run at least 3 times a week without going more than 3 days without running. Its not horrible. Is it enough to get me to run a 5k in August? No.

I’m back in full force now. Foosh and I vowed to run every day this week and next. I did make some bad decisions recently that led me to the laziness of not running, but I’m still running 3/2 and looking forward to changing to 4/1 when my body is ready.

Obviously writing in this blog every day is not going to happen. But I do promise to keep you posted as much as I can, be that tomorrow or sometime next week. I haven’t given up, I’m still in this game.