Saturday 4-miler

Didn't get a chance to post yesterday after I finished my morning 4 mile run, so here we go! 

I started with just a brief 3 minutes walking warm-up and, it seems, I felt it throughout the first mile.  My legs burned early on and it was tough for me to run farther than 1m 30s at a time (but I forced myself to run until the 2m mark).  I got out earlier than usual, which was nice since I was able to avoid the intensity of the sun (for the most part) during the run. 

Throughout mile 2 and 3, things seemed to get easier actually.  My legs felt much better and I was able to run easily into the 2m mark.  There were a few times, however, that I would take an extended walking break of 3m to recover before I began running again.  However, that only happened about 3 times during the middle 2 miles and I was able to cut that out later in the run. 

A big problem that I began noticing started in my 3rd mile: chafing.  My inner thighs and underarm areas experienced chafing from my running clothes.  And today, I still have little patches that (luckily) aren't as sensitive as yesterday, but still are noticeably painful when touched.  Needless to say, I may have to invest in some Body Glide if I continue to run longer and longer distances.  This was the first time I'd ever noticed chafing being a problem but I've heard runners talk about it as a major issue for them.  For now, we'll  just see how things go in the future to determine whether this will be necessary for me or not. 

I talked with a personal trainer yesterday about my training routine and he suggested I work in some strength training twice a week.  He agreed that it would help me with endurance, stabilize my joints (I've started to notice a little aching in my right knee during my runs) and it would ultimately help with my times.  While I'm not really concerned with my running time, it would be nice to progress beyond where I am now in hopes of reaching my long term goal of running the half marathon.  All I need to finish the half marathon (besides a heck of a lot of endurance, patience and determination), is to be able to maintain a 16 minute/mile pace.  If I can't, then I'll get picked up and shipped back to the starting line...in shame.  I guess this means that I'll need to join a gym again so I have access to the weights and even a treadmill in the event it is lightning out.  Running on treadmills is miserable, I loathe it, but I'll get it done if it comes to it.  In essence, he suggested that doing weights on Mondays and Thursdays would probably work best with my current running training.  That way, I'd have a rest day on Friday before my long run on Saturday morning.  Whenever I finally do join the gym, I'll let him know what types of weights are available and he's going to put together a routine for me to follow, which is great!  I'm really lucky to have someone so knowledgeable who's willing to help me!

I'm glad I've got 4 weeks under my belt now and about 40 miles (give or take).  Honestly, when I started, I wasn't sure I would even get this far.  I was worried that I would sign up for the upcoming 5K, intend to train, train for maybe a week and then just show up at the 5K and do whatever I could to finish.  BUT, I've surpassed what I thought I would be capable of doing and that's a pretty good feeling.  It makes me think that maybe this half-marathon goal IS doable after all! 

STILL TO DO: New Music on my iPod

OF NOTE: 4 miles took me 62 minutes.