Week 7 - The 12-Minute Mile

Monday, June 23, 2008

An off day. My plan for the week is to push a bit harder in two ways. First, I'm going to try to speed up a bit more while riding the stationary bike. Second, I return to running this weekend.


Tuesday, June 24 through Thursday, June 26, 2008

I did 10 miles on the stationary bike in 27:01, 27:13, and 27:00 (my personal best), respectively. Good effort on all three days. Stargate SG-1 progresses to Season 10.


Friday, June 27, 2008

Another day off. Tomorrow, I plan to run a mile combining walking and running.


Saturday, June 28, 2008

I started out with the intent to run and walk a mile. As I started running, I realized I was feeling fairly good physically with no more "jolts" abdominally. I decided to run both laps and only stopping to walk if something was wrong. I was able to complete the mile in 12 minutes without walking. I'm thrilled!


Sunday, June 29, 2008

DOMS... Yuck!

I again started running with the intent of stopping to walk if necessary. However, while I was sore, I wasn't in serious pain. I not only ran the entire mile but I finished in 11 minutes or so (the iPOD only has whole numbers...).


Mental Skills Used for the Week: As usual, associative and dissociative thinking. I'm focusing more on associative thinking and am paying very close attention to how I'm feeling as I run.

There's been an active adjustment of goal setting as I move forward. Motivation is a hell of a lot easier when you're seeing progress. The fact that I could finish a mile was a big deal for me. The fact that I could do it again the next day was bigger still. Persistence and commitment are also easier with steady progess.

I'm thrilled as things get a little easier in some ways, such as getting up to run or setting aside time to ride the bike, and harder in others, such as deciding to continue running instead of walking.

My plan is to continue to ride the stationary bike during the week and to run on the weekends. I'll stick with 1 mile runs for the next week and then will increase to 1.5 mile runs in two weeks.

Until next week...