Hello everyone.
Because this is my first entry, I will do the whole month of October as an overview, plus the first half of November; please forgive the length.
Since I am 47 years (and 300+ days) old, and October was my first full month of training after approximately eight years of not running, I started out very slow.
My first "attempted" run was actually Saturday, September 25th with Peter, Caleb, and Beracha on a trail near the Scenic Drive stairs and I ran about .25k (that's a quarter kilometer) before needing a break.
For each training run after that, I started out running as far as I could (I call it a "continuous run") before taking a break; and then would run a block and walk a block after that.
For October I ran three times each week. October 1st was .3k and by the 31st was up to 2k (continuous run); the total distance of all twelve continuous runs was 12.5k (and with running/walking was 26.3k).
The increase in distance of one run over the previous run averaged .17k over the twelve runs (the biggest increase was .3k).
Beginning in November, I changed to a route that includes (small) hills (more like gradual inclines and declines).
In the first two and a half weeks of November, I have run six times; November 6th was 2.1k and today (the 20th) was 4.5k (continuous run). The total distance of continuous runs for these six is 18.9k (and with running/walking is 21.9k).
The increase in distance of one run over the previous run averaged .45k for these six runs (the biggest increase was .8k).
With these increasing averages and distances, I am noticing that a two day recovery may not be sufficient for me and I may have to go to a three day recovery cycle. Even so, if I can increase my distance by an average of 1k per week over the next 17-20 weeks, I would be up to 20k; leaving me a buffer of 18+ weeks to work on speed.
Also, I just got a new battery for my old digital watch which has a stopwatch function so I will start trying to get some time info going "soon".
Since September, I have been reading some of Peter's old runners magazines, one of which is iRun; one of their features is something called "iRun because" where people write a statement about why they run. Most are very inspirational (and serious). However, because I have a humorous streak, and sometimes lots of waiting time while on limo runs, I have come up with some of my own, which I plan on sharing when I make a post and hopefully make you chuckle (or at least bring a smile to your face).
Today I will do two to get started; the first "iRun because" is for the "young" runners; iRun because... I don't have (or need) a driver's license.
The second is iRun because... I have running shoes.
TO GOD BE THE GLORY!
