Better, Stronger, Faster!
Welcome to John Noce Fitness and the Asheville Running Coach in Asheville NC. Improve your mile, 5k, 10k, half marathon or even your marathon times! My name is John Noce and I'm a running coach & certified personal trainer with years (and miles) of experience. I coach beginning and experienced runners in order to help them be their best. Call me at (828) 738-6623.
Well, I did it! On April 3rd, 2021, I made my 4th attempt at breaking the 8 minute mile since I started this "quest" in October 2020 . The weather was perfect, I had the track to myself, and just felt good! Here is the video I made for my YouTube channel.
Just to recap what's in (and not in) the video, I did a 400m jog, followed by some stretching. My ankle was feeling really weird at first during the warmup but it worked itself out quickly with the jog and stretching.
I debated listening to music. I had two songs from the Rocky Anthology that combined were 7:55, but I decided that since it didn't go well the last time I tried running with my phone and music, I would just focus on the run.
My splits were as follows. Not as even as I'd like them to be, but definitely better than they had been.
Lap 1: 1:54.98
Lap 2: 2:06:.31 / 4:01.29
Lap 3: 2:04.47 / 6:05.76
Lap 4: 1:48.29 / 7:54.05
Having made 3 prior attempts at the mile since October, I knew I had the speed to run 2 minutes per lap, but I lacked the endurance to repeat them. So Since October, I've been focused on building my mileage. I've had to go slowly because I'm trying to avoid getting injured again with the Plantar Fasciitis I had early on in my journey to start running again. In October and November and half of December, work was crazy and so I lost some progress and like a dork, I tried to jump back into running from where I had left off. As a result, I felt the Plantar coming on again, so I backed off and took it slow.
Which brings me to a good point. Do NOT underestimate stretching. I have always did it as a chore. Even as a running coach, I would preach to my clients the importance of stretching and really get on them for not doing it, and yet not do it properly for myself.
So I stopped trying to run "on my own" and instead, treated myself as a client. I actually wrote out a plan for a 50-something (cough-cough) male, overweight, former runner with plantar fasciitis. Once I did that, I knew exactly what I had to do and stopped "Winging it".
Breaking that goal of 8 minutes was huge for me. And now that I've done it, I feel inspired and excited to take on the next challenge!
No comments:
Post a Comment