Babble Crazy

On the first day of starting something new I usually get overly excitable or nervous with cold sweats and a dry mouth. This goal has added a new interesting experience to the mix: babble. My mind went wild with ideas and worries all day at work, knowing that I was scheduled to do my first run in the evening. Which route should I run? Can I really do 15 minutes straight without stopping? What about that hill on the way to the park? Oh! I don’t know where my old digital watch is. Should I hold my iPhone in my hand and set the timer? Do I really have to time it? And on and on… Once home, I washed dishes, I put in a load of laundry, I did some stretching, I found my 10 year old bright pink watch that latches with velcro- until finally, I decided I just have to go out there and do it. 

I walked slowly waiting for the exact second to begin running. This run will be exactly 15 minutes, just like the online schedule says, I told myself. I made the assumption that I was already able to run 15 minutes without walking and skipped week 8 on the schedule. If I couldn’t run for 15 minutes straight I would have trouble progressing through the rest of the training. It would be an immediate fail. All my running up until this point was gauged by distance. I would set myself a goal like; I will run 5 laps around the perimeter of the park. I never brought a watch with me and timed it. Often I would look at the clock before leaving the house and again when I came back, but during those runs I also allowed myself to take walk breaks. 

Within the first lap Babble showed up again. How many minutes have you been running? Really? That’s it? You’ll have to do that 10 more times. There’s the hill, I bet you’ll need to walk once you reach the top. Bah! This babble persona I didn’t know I had followed me from work and self-appointed itself as my new running partner. 

To my surprise, despite all the drama happening inside my head, the run was not overly challenging. I was able to keep a steady pace and I chose a route that had less of an incline than my usual route to make sure I preserved my knee. On a lap around the park I passed a grey haired man hobbling along in an indigo blue Hawaiian dress shirt. When I was a few feet ahead of him he yelled, “Wanna gimme a piggy back?” So, I can only assume that I looked confident and strong. In fact, I looked so strong that I am capable of running with a grown man on my back. 

Later in the evening, I went to map out the distance of my run (http://www.mapmyrun.com/ca/). It turns out, I ran 1.87 miles (Unfortunately the website only calculates in miles) in 15 minutes, which is the equivalent of 3K. Not bad! Much better than I thought I would do! With this information, using an online calculator to determine my pace (https://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/pace/#) I was again surprised to learn that my pace was 8 minutes and 1 second per mile!  Running 5K without taking a walk break is a possibility. At that pace I will be able to run the total 5K in approximately 40-42 minutes. I can already nearly run half that! Take that, Babble! This is all theory, of course. Adding on another 25 minutes is sure to lower my overall pace. Knowing this, I am convinced that in following this schedule I will achieve my goal.

Now I know where I need to challenge myself for the next 7 weeks. I must focus on maintaining and increasing my pace and on pushing myself on the days that include Strides, Hill Strides, and Long Runs. I will get my first chance tomorrow. It is my first 20 minute run with 4 Strides.

Babble is not invited.