Day 3 – 20 minutes of continuous running. It sits there on the C25K schedule…taunting me. Surrounded by days of running with walk breaks, that 20 minutes of running really sticks out like a sore thumb.
I woke up this morning with a mix of apprehension and excitement. I knew it was going to be a challenge, but I also knew that if I made it past today, I could tackle any of the other days. I hit the Start button on my heart rate monitor watch and headed off to complete C25K W5D3.
I started running and realized my pace was too fast. I was anxious to conquer this goal and my legs were in more of a hurry than the rest of my body. At about the half way point, I had to fight the urge to stop and take a walking break. Since the program uses the run-walk pattern, my body was expecting a break. I kept going, pushing past the thoughts of how a fast walk would feel good about then.
I glanced the watch on my heart rate monitor and saw that I was only one minute from reaching the 20 minute goal. That was the longest 60 seconds this week. Later today I mapped the distance using the mileage calculator at gmaps-pedometer.com. I covered a distance of 2 miles in those twenty minutes. My goal is to run my first 5K in 30 minutes or less, so to see that I averaged 10 minute miles was encouraging.
Stats from my Polar F4 Heart Rate Monitor:
Duration: 33:33
In Zone: 23:59
Avg. HR: 142 bpm
Max HR: 171 bpm
Calories Burned: 390
