Category: Running Log

Just noticed that earlier this month I passed the 1 year mark of using Runkeeper to track my walking and running.
I think I’ve made pretty good progress in the past year. I’m not out to set any records or do marathons or anything like that. My goal is just to stay active and keep myself at a comfortable weight, which I’m mostly at. Except for the summer heat putting a damper on the running I’m pretty pleased with the way my running has been.
Over the past year I’ve gone from barely being able to run 2.5km non-stop at a slow 7+ min/km pace to my longest run of 12km at a 6:00 min/km pace and doing 100 km/month. That didn’t last long once summer hit unfortunately, but now that the weather is cooler I’ll be logging more miles on the road.
Since using Runkeeper to track things, I’ve logged 125 activities, 581km of running and walking and burned over 49k calories.
Go me!

The summer heat has been sapping my enthusiasm for running a lot more than I expected. Being busy with other things and some out-of-town trips has poked a few holes in my regular routine too, but it’s mostly been the heat. I’m ready for cooler weather, but that’s still a couple months away.
Even though this morning was a relatively less hot 23°C (still a pretty warm summer day compared to back home) it was tough to get started and to keep going.
At this rate, I may not reach the running goal I set for myself.

Summer is here, and with it are the 30°C+ temperatures (in the morning) that completely sap any desire I might have to do anything outside, much less go running in it. This is putting my running goal of 800 km by the end of the year in jeopardy.
I see a lot of people running outside, particularly mid-day, which makes me wonder how on earth they do that.
I’ve fired up the treadmill and set up the fan so that there’s some air flow to keep me sort of cool while I use it. The plan is to use it a little more during the summer but first I have to figure out what units I set it up to display in. I seem to remember setting it up to display in metric so I just need to make sure.
Treadmill running isn’t quite the same as running on the road, but it should at least keep me doing something, which is better than doing nothing.

During my run today the thought popped into my head to see how far I could go at my 6:00/km comfort pace.
Kilometer 12 is where I hit the wall.
I was still feeling pretty good at kilometer 10, and thinking I could maybe make it to 15km.
Legs were starting to get a little tired at kilometer 11, but still felt like 15km was within reach.
Halfway into kilometer 12, my legs turned into lead weights.
Fortunately it was on the stretch heading back towards the house, so I was able to finish the 12km run without having to walk too far to get back home.
Pretty good long run today. A little damp from some light sprinkles, but fortunately the rain held off until after I got back home.

I feel like I have a pretty good endurance base now, so it’s time to mix up the running a bit with some speed work. My goal isn’t necessarily to race faster, but just to add some variety to my running workouts.
There’s no track near me and since I hate intervals anyway, my plan is to throw in one, maybe two days of fartleks and tempo runs a week.
Should help with dropping a little more weight too (I probably need to start going back to the gym as well).