35 minutes

yesterday was a 3mi run. I was inspired by Kathy's telling of her amazing 1mi test run time on Wednesday, and thought that I would try to kick it up a bit this time around. Guessing time and pacing in general is kind of hard for me, and I'm not always the best at keeping up a good pace on my own, but I thought I'd try anyway.

The weather was beautiful; not too hot, not humid. It was a little windy going out, which made things even harder to figure out how hard I was running. It should have been a breeze, but it really wasn't. I started having trouble breathing round about mile 2, which I wasn't expecting. I've had asthma since I was a kid, but over the last couple years the only time it gets really bad is in the winter time or when I'm around cats or dogs. I don't think it was asthma, tho; I was breathing clearly, I just couldn't take in full breaths or something, which is quite frustrating. And of course my shins started hurting too.

So right about then I decided to walk just a little bit. I thought to myself that if I could walk for short bursts and then run at my quicker than normal pace for longer stretches, then my time probably wouldn't be so bad. I don't wear a watch (I probably should start, at least for running) so I couldn't time my running or walking periods, I just used landmarks instead. It figured out to walking for a block and then running for 2.

By the time I got back home my shins were positively aching, and I think I was probably at my normal pace (about 11:30min/mi at this point, I think). So I wasn't expecting much for my time, I would have been pretty happy with 37-38minutes. I walked right in my house and checked the time: 35 minutes! That was a pleasant surprise, it was the same as my time for my other 3mi run this week at my normal pace, not too shabby.

I definitely took some quality time icing my shins last night. (thanks for the tip, Emilia! I miss you!) And I am actually leaving work right now to go buy new shoes. Hopefully that means I actually can be successful at my attempts to work on my running speed. Pretty exciting stuff!