«
»

Running in Circles

I know I haven’t been posting very frequently lately – or at all – but I’ve been doing good things during my hiatus. Most notably, I’ve been a running machine.

I’m 3/4 of the way through my fifth week of training for the half marathon I’m running on May 2, and I’m proud to say that I haven’t missed a single run. I’ve had to be flexible though, and switch up a few days here and there to accommodate life and whatnot, but I’ve gotten in every scheduled run to date. A quick recap for you, in case you’re interested:

Week 1: 3.5, 3, 2, 3 = 11.5 total miles

Week 2: 4, 3.5, 2, 3.71 = 12.21 total miles

Week 3: 5.37, 4, 2, 4 = 15.37 total miles

Week 4: 6, 4, 2, 4 = 16 total miles

Week 5: 7!, 4.57, 3.07 = 14.64 so far (4.5 miles scheduled for tomorrow)

Did you see the long run in Week 5? SEVEN MILES. That’s my longest run to date. Prior to that, I did a6.5 mile run on Christmas (in the rain) and a 10k road race (6.2 miles) in early December.

That 7 miles was tough, too. I wasn’t completely convinced that I was ready for it, but I set my mind to it and just went for it. And I did it – running nonstop (except for a traffic light or two), at my very slow pace, it took 1 hour and 19 minutes. I’m proud of every damn one of those minutes, too.

Here’s the thing, though: For my longer runs, I generally run a short route multiple times. So for instance: That 7-miler was two laps of a 3.5-mile route. For my 6-mile run, I did 3 laps of a 2-mile route.

I’m literally running in circles.

Which is still better than running on the treadmill, where you run and run but get nowhere.

In some sense, I like doing multiple laps rather than one big loop. You definitely know how far you are into the run this way, which is usually good… except when I’m feeling particularly tired not far into the first lap…

In another sense, I think I might prefer one long run. It would certainly alleviate the temptation to cut the run short, but that’s not generally an issue for me. Of course sometimes I’d LIKE to, but I would be so disappointed in myself if I did that, so I don’t think it’ll ever happen.

Question for the runners out there: Do you run laps of shorter routes or do you do one big circle when you run? What are your reasons for preferring one way over the other?

Circles or not, I’m RUNNING. And that’s all that really matters.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 10th, 2010 at 7:36 pm and is filed under Half Marathon, Personal Stories, Road Races, Training, Trials and Tribulations, Workouts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

  • http://www.logmyloss.com/ South Beach Steve

    I'll let the lack of posting slide since you have been exercising. :-)

  • jord_05

    I prefer a single long loop because I tend to obsess about the hard parts if I do a short loop multiple times. I prefer my hills to be a surprise. ;) Are you following a formal training plan?

  • Kimberly

    I completely relate to that! I'm working on figuring out longer routes so I don't have to double up but it's so hard in Pittsburgh since I don't want to sabotage myself by working in HUGE, LONG hills that will kill me.

    I'm following an altered version of Hal Higdon's half marathon training plan (http://www.halhigdon.com/halfmarathon/novice.htm). I didn't like that the furthest I would run on this plan is 10 miles, when the half is 13.1, so I used this as a guide and modified it a bit. Now, my longest run will be 12 miles, which makes me feel better. I'm sure Hal knows what he's talking about, but I know myself, lol.

    Thanks for the comment!