Thursday, January 10, 2008

I can't get anything done in 25 minutes

That's what I was thinking when I looked at the clock and realized that I had frittered away almost all of my valuable time when the girls were in school today. But then I caught myself and climbed out of that negative thinking trap - SOMETHING is better than NOTHING today, right?

So I headed over to the school track for a quick few laps before I picked up the girls.


Let's see, if I do this right I have time for 8 laps. I'm ready to go after my walk over.

1. 3:02. Ouch, I'm feeling creaky.
2. 2:51. OK, my knee stopped hurting. Now I can run semi-normally.
3. 2:44. That's not so creaky, starting to warm up.
4. 2:43. I wonder if I can do every lap faster than the last? Let's hit it!
0:22. Pause to remove hot vest and gloves.
5. 2:23. Woot! Whew, that got me out of breath. Not bad.
6. 2:44. OK, I can breathe again. One more time, faster than the last.
7. 2:22. That's better.
8. 2:55. OK, warm down, and go get the girls.

22:10: Total time for 2.0 miles and pause including a half mile at 9:30 min/mile pace.

Not a lot of distance by endurance athlete standards, of course, and not a lot of speed by most runner standards, but it's still probably more distance than a lot of people ran in the entire year of 2007. In less time than many moms spend sitting in their cars waiting for their kids to get out of school every day.

7 comments:

LBTEPA said...

That's why I keep my exercise bike hooked up - 15 minutes on that is better than nothing.

jbmmommy said...

Great use of the time, I've got to remember that even little efforts are worth it.

Brent Buckner said...

Good recovery from time slippage!

Fe-lady said...

It ALL counts...maybe next time someone sitting in one of the cars will join you! Wouldn't that be something? :-)

Ellie Hamilton said...

I love it! Just goes to show what can be done!

Iron Pol said...

Let's count the "just remembers" in here:

1. You ran more in 20 minutes than most people run all week.

2. Your average pace, not to mention the 9:30 half mile, was faster than most people can run, period.

3. Going sub-10 for a mile is the first step in going sub-9 for a mile. From there, it's a few short leaps to sub-8s.

4. While you were out running, many people were home trying to get the last few minutes of some t.v. show before going to get their kids.

Great job!

Noah Wood - A Maryland Runner said...

Hey there Nancy, that's awesome you were able to fit that work out in and increase your pace throughout! Keep it up, sounds like you're going to have some improvements!