Smartcoach.

Instead of a coach whistle, I decided to post the above picture instead. Hope you enjoyed it as much as I did.

On the subject of whistles, I'm hoping the Smartcoach running plan from Runnersworld.com will be just the "whistle" I need to motivate me again. If today was any indication, I should be good to go. Many thanks to my DailyMile friend, Mr. Brent A., who suggested it to me.

Smartcoach set up an 11-week plan to train me for my next 5K race (not the one on May 19, obviously--I'll just have fun with that one--but the July 21 race), and I was surprised at all the EASY runs it would have me doing. And when I say easy, I'm talking a 12:30 pace! That's even too slow for me, LOL. More on that later. It will have me increase my distance, but gradually, and still at a slow pace, throwing in only occasional speedwork and tempo runs. By week 7, my long run will be 4 miles, then 5 miles by week 8, and 6 miles by week 9. 

Needless to say, I had been getting ahead of myself. Quite literally. I've been pushing myself too hard, too soon. Not distance-wise, necessarily, but pace-wise. No wonder I've gotten discouraged lately. I was making it too hard for myself, and it was becoming a drudgery. It might be different if I had been athletic all my life. But I haven't. My idea of being athletic up until the past year or so was pushing myself away from the computer several times a day to go use the bathroom. Okay, maybe not that bad.

The Smartcoach plan predicts that I will be able to run the 5K Race in July at around a 9:57 pace, which would put my time at 30:54. That sounds pretty reasonable, but I would love it if I could do it in 30 minutes flat.

I did the first run of the plan today. "Easy run, 2 miles, @12:30." Not at 12:30pm, haha, just thought I'd throw that in there. A 12:30 pace sounded slow to me, but it's funny how it motivated me at the same time. It screamed, "EASY!" The heat didn't deter me one bit this time. It felt like a drill sergeant had just told me, "At ease." I could relax, maybe even enjoy the run a little. And knowing it would be an easy run, I started off right from my house this time, instead of doing my usual 5-minute warm-up walk, which made the majority of the run under the cover of trees, making the heat much more bearable.

I tried running at what I "thought" was a 12:30 pace, but in the end, wound up averaging 11:07. I think I would have had to drag my feet to run any slower. LOL. But just knowing I could slow down even more if I wanted to made for a very relaxing run. It felt good.