I may be back from Cornell, and I may be sleeping in a glorious king-sized bed instead of a twin XL (thank goodness)… but that doesn’t mean I can’t go streaking, right?
A few weeks ago, Runner’s World announced their annual running streak challenge: run at least a mile every single day from Memorial Day through July 4th. As I mentioned in yesterday’s post, I’m attempting to take on this challenge… and possibly even extend it all the way through Labor Day for a full summer of running. I was really proud of myself for running through Reunion Weekend, and figured that from here on out, it would be a piece of cake…
…until I woke up with a slight tickle in my throat on Monday morning. Monday wasn’t too bad, and I squeezed in a 5K run on the treadmill that night after work in Florida. Tuesday, though, my throat got a lot worse, and I ended up getting medicine and cough drops to try to make it better. I didn’t get up to work out in the morning like I usually do (except Mondays when I have to get up at 4am for my commute), but I dutifully headed for the treadmill after work and got in a quick 1.5 miles in 10.5 minutes. Turns out, doing a short distance like that isn’t bad even when you’re sick! Post-run, I had a big bowl of pho for dinner, and tried to get to bed early.
This morning, though, I woke up feeling worse than ever. I amused myself by singing in the shower in a baritone voice at least two octaves below my regular voice, and my coworkers did a double take when I walked into the office and greeted them with a very deep “good morning”. But as the day went on, I started feeling a little bit better, and tonight when I headed for the treadmill, I decided to go for a full 5K to make up for my lack of workouts this week.
I started at a 7:00 pace, and was surprised to find it was totally comfortable and relaxed. So when I got 1.5 miles done, I decided to push it a bit. Every minute, I bumped the pace up one click on the treadmill (e.g., from 8.5mph to 8.6mph, etc). I kept doing this until I hit the 16:00 mark, when I knew I only had about five minutes left. So at that point, I started increasing my speed a click every 30 seconds. I hit 10.0mph at 20:00 and knew I was almost there, so at 20:30, I bumped the pace up to 10.5mph for a final push… and ended up finishing 10K in 21:08. Not bad for what actually felt like an easy run!
As a bonus, I checked my FitBit after my workout, and found that my heart rate only averaged 140bpm for that workout. For comparison, in a race, I typically average 155-165bpm. That means I’m in a lot better shape than ever before! Thanks, running streak – you’re already working wonders! 🙂
Anyone else streaking with me?