Saturday, March 5, 2011

I Just Felt Like Running Virtual 5k Results

About a month ago I signed up to participate in the 'I Just Felt Like Running' Virtual 5k organized by Jeff at Detroit Runner. It was just the motivation I needed to get me back into my running shoes and back on my mission to become a runner to improve my health.

When I talk about improving my health, I mean specifically improving the health of my lungs. Any other health benefits I receive will be a fabulous plus. I have exercise-induced and allergy-induced asthma.  Running is supposed to be the best treatment for Asthma. The problem is, it can be hell (and it kinda has been for me) to get the lungs conditioned and increase their capacity.

Anyway, I had to get back into running slowly. After all, I had just begun running last June and my longest distance, without walking, was a 5k. A very slow 5k (39:39 I believe it was). 

 I had to push myself to make it a mile without walking. It took a few weeks, but I did it. Then I aimed for a mile and a half before taking a walk break and increased my distance each time I jumped on the treadmill. 


Before the race - I made my own bib

The beginning of the race

I'm happy to say I ran the entire 3.1 miles this past Thursday. But, it was slower than my first 5k race at 44:42. I wanted to improve on that time before submitting my Virtual 5k race results so I ran it again today completing it in 42:19. It's still slower than my first 5k, but I'm so happy that I not only ran 3.1 miles without walking twice this week, but I made an improvement on my speed. Things can only get better!


The finish - I added my time to my race bib

This week's milage:
Tues - 3.10 (had walking breaks)
Thur - 3.10
Fri - 2.25
Sat - 3.1
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Total 11.55 miles - I had a goal of 15 miles but had to take Monday off to work on my taxes (which I'm not done with yet).


I clean up pretty well after the race
Thank you Jeff for hosting this race. It's just what the doctor didn't order but very much approved of!



5 comments:

Anne said...

Congrats Pat! That's an awesome week :)
Great job on your race!

Detroit Runner(Jeff) said...

Great Job Pat. Keep up the great work!!!!

ajh said...

Nice job on the race. You ran it twice!

Darlene said...

Keep up the good work. I hate to say this but I always walk during my training runs.I do better on the real thing. So you did great!

Nej said...

Great job!!!

I have a very, very, VERY mild exercise induced asthma issue. And the more I've gotten into running, the more it's gone to the wayside. The biggest trick was completing my distances in intervals. 2 minutes run/1 minute walk, etc, etc.