Day 113, 252 To Go

April 23, 2013

Honey is in the house!  Well, I suppose she is out of the house, if I'm being literal.  That's because she decided to grace me with her presence today.  I think she is trying to break her record of running 19 days in one month.  I don't think she will break it this month, but next month, watch out!

When I run with Honey, the coach in me wants to give her instructions, but the husband in me knows better.  If I were some hunky personal trainer, she would hang on my every word and practically beg me for my insight.  Since I am just her hunky husband, my opinion is worthless and better left given to the dogs we pass on our run.

Such is the married life.

So, instead of telling her what she can do to improve, I will instead tell all of you (not that you are going to listen to me either....don't worry, I'm married, I'm used to being ignored).

There are few things I see most beginners do that can affect their performance and enjoyment.  The first thing is the clothes they wear.  Many start out all excited wearing their cotton shorts and shirts and worst of all, cotton socks.  At first, they feel great, but if you sweat or run long, you will regret it.  Cotton absorbs all of your sweat, irritates your skin, chafes and overall causes misery.  Go with synthetic materials all the way!

Another thing new runners do is they overuse their arms.  They pump their arms like they are in a boxing match instead of on a run.  Not only that, they punch the guy to their left then their right and their left and their right...in other words, they pump their arms and they swing them across their body.  This does two things.  First, it wastes energy with all the excess pumping and second, when you cross your body with your arms, you overwork your core with all the twisting which also wastes energy.  It can also cause back injuries and other trunk injuries.  Any excess movement, especially awkward movement, over time can build up and cause overuse injuries.

Of course, the thing most new runners do wrong is they try to run too fast too soon.  If you start out too hard too soon, you end up tiring yourself out to the point that you can not recover, and you either have to end your workout too soon or you get sloppy with your form and can cause injuries.  Pacing is something that comes with experience, or you can cheat and use a GPS watch.  Again, you can always use your heart rate as a guide to keep yourself in check.

All of these things will improve with time and experience.  Not that Honey has any of these issues, of course!! (<wink, wink>)

Here are our numbers: (Update...I screwed up somewhere...these numbers are from my GPS, so they are right, but Honey didn't put up these numbers....so I don't know what happened!)

Time: 20:00

Distance: 2.30 miles

Pace: 8:42/m

Max Pace: 6:16/m

Calories: 285

Avg HR: 129

Max HR: 157

Honey is going longer and longer without stopping...I think she got just past 10 minutes today.  Soon, she will be at 20!  Go Honey!

Run for Life!!