3.3 miles

I have been wondering lately if I need to start focusing more on building my endurance. I seem to be able to run up to 2.2 miles without much difficulty, but beyond that, it starts to get hard. I have been concerned more with building speed up to now, but I think I'm going to shift from that to working on endurance for awhile.  Then once I have more endurance, I'll work on my speed, at least while I'm still only running in 5K races. Eventaully I'd like to build up to longer distances. 8K first, then 10K, then a half-marathon. I don't know if I'll ever want to do a marathon, but that's mainly because right now, just running 5K seems tough enough to me. LOL.

I'll build my endurance by running more longer runs, but at a slower pace. Maybe run four days per week instead of my usual three, and possibly even build up to running five days per week. We'll see how it goes. I'll probably only do two longer runs this upcoming week, though (at the beginning of the week), since I'll need to taper off for the 5K race next Saturday (April 28).

Today I ran 3.3 miles (a little over 5K), and it was a tough run. It was an evening run, and since it's pretty warm here right now, the heat didn't help. At one point, it felt like my heart was doing something funny, so I checked my pulse and it was definitely too fast--it was racing--so I slowed my pace for awhile to give my heart rate a chance to slow down some.

Then my legs started to feel so heavy during about the last half mile. I kept telling myself to pick my feet up, because every now and then I would "shuffle." No tripping allowed, I also told myself. It can be bad for your running health.

At one point, the only reason I kept going was because of my nice little self-pep-talk. I noticed something, too. When I focused on the negative aspects of how I felt, it seemed much harder to keep going. But when I told myself I was strong, that I could do this, that 3.1 miles was easy, that I could make it to the fire hydrant, to the gate, to that corner, to the creek bridge... I would literally feel my body getting stronger, and it would seem easier. Not easy, mind you, but definitely easier.

To my runner friends out there who might be reading this: What do you do during your tough runs to help motivate you?