W3: D2 - Pretty Darn Good

After my cranky episode yesterday, I was in much better spirits on Thursday.  We watched Spirit of the Marathon Tuesday night and I've been intrigued by something that was said in the film.  One of the runners featured talked about how she and some of her friends are constantly looking at their watches and thinking about the next run because they want to improve their times.  I can relate to that, in February 2010 when I started running I was always looking at my watch and trying to outdo my times.  Even this April when I started training for my first 5K, I was still glancing at my watch, trying to track each lap.

But when I started training in August, something had changed within me, (Wicked reference.)

It stopped being as much about the time, and much more about the distance.  Time will always be a big factor for me, but distance will too.  And the young woman in the film said she wished she could be more like the runners who simply went out and ran, and weren't focused on their time.  In spite of being so slow, I've noticed a shift in that direction and I like it.  I still check my watch sometimes, sometimes I lose count of my laps and I need to time a few to figure out how many I've done.  But overall my mind has decided to be much more focused on each step, rather than each second.

My target 5 mile run time is 1:15:00 or 15:00 per mile.  I finished in 1:16:21, I was really pleased about that.  No, it's not my target time, but it was pretty close.