I took the paperwork to TNT this afternoon and have officially joined up. The initial gathering of the group for 3 counties is to be held a week from Saturday. That day I will be in New Hampshire with my folks as Mom is moving and I wanted to help her. I can get the info emailed to me when I return but I will have to wait to meet our honored guest (likely someone who has been battling one of the diseases that make up the Leukemia and Lymphoma diseases). Robin said that there is a pot luck dinner in September that will also be a big gathering of the runners, honored guests, other speakers and Society and TNT people. That should be an exciting event and by then I will have nearly 2 months of running under my belt. I wonder how far I will be running then.
My run tonight was good. I noticed tightness in my calves when I tried to stretch my beginning steps into a longer stride. Also I noticed that the longer step caused me to hit harder on my landing which then I felt in the muscles behind my knee cap. I left the steps short for the first quarter mile and then all the tightness melted away.
I practiced different stride lengths and different speeds to see how that affected my running. The longer stride seemed to require more wind as my breathing increased when I ran that way for a while. I checked the heart rate and it remained between 120 and 138 for most of the 2 miles. I pushed for the last 200 yards ( oh yeah that is 2 football fields) and used all the rest of my energy to get to my driveway. I was huffing pretty good but the heart rate was still in the mid 140's. That is high but since I was out of breath, I knew it was higher than the rest of the run.
Well, it looks like this is going to become a habit as I have now done this for 3 weeks.
I will weigh in tomorrow and see how much less of me will run the next 2 miles.
Thanks for checking in.
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1 comment:
Congrats on making it official with TNT!
As far as the strides go, I've heard that shorter quick, strides can be more efficient (kind of like pedaling quickly in a low gear on a bike is more efficient than pedaling slowly on too high a gear) so I wouldn't worry too much about trying to increase stride length artificially (except maybe when going downhill). The most important thing is to find a stride and cadence that works for you and you feel comfortable with. I think as you become more experienced, your speed will increase, and your stride will naturally lengthen concurrently.
Happy Running!
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