On Saturday, Jan. 21, 2007--almost exactly a year after I started running--I became a 1-hour runner!! I can't quite believe it. Before I do each long run in the back of my mind I think, "I can't run 1 hour..." and then somehow I just do it. This is a little over 5 miles for me, nearly three laps around my favorite park. I don't run all of the way. I run the first lap with intermittent walk breaks, then run the entire second lap, and then go back to running with walk breaks. If I don't do anything else with my running, I hope to continue to be a 1-hour runner.
I've been following a schedule to become a 1-hour runner that I found in Runner's World that calls for increasing the long run by 10% two consecutive weeks and cutting back by 50% the third week as a rest week. (The plan suggested that experienced runners could increase by 20%-25%, but I thought that was just too much.) So far this has worked out well, but I find that running 55+ mins is hard on my body and I'm tired or a bit sore the next day. So, I plan to repeat weeks to let my body adjust. This next week I'm going to a conference, and next week I'm running a 5K race. After that I'll go back to running 60 minutes.
During the week I run on the treadmill at about 4 a.m.!!! I swear, sometimes the only reason I'm running at that hour is because the treadmill is moving. I'm up to 45 minutes now. Usually, I begin by walking 15 minutes and then alternate running and walking by some ratio.
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