I'm gonna be completely honest right now...I did not run any of the miles for these weeks. So I am going to use this blog post to talk about how I feel about my progress throughout the project.
I started this project very confident and excited to see what I could accomplish. I was doing the workouts very diligently each week to make sure that I was getting as much from them as possible. I was running a mile every single week and making constant improvements in my times. Sadly, this momentum did not carry throughout the whole project. Eventually I got tired of spending my time doing intense workouts only to shave off a few seconds off of my mile. I started to slack on these and eventually stopped doing them entirely. This happened around week 7. I kept running the miles each week but soon I began to doubt my ability to reach my goal of a sub-6-minute mile. After running a mile in week 7 and 8 I noticed that my times were still improving despite not having done the workouts. I was surprised by this and it made me think that the workouts may have been a waste of time. When week 9 rolled around I don't know what happened but I was so done with this project. I did not want to run at all. I didn't do the workouts for that week and I didn't feel like running the mile either, but I made myself do it. I ran the mile and got my best time yet, but I decided that I was not going to run anymore. I feel that if I had continued to run and do my workouts I would have been able to reach my goal. 12 weeks was a relatively short amount of time to meet my goal but I think that if I had 3 or 4 more weeks I would have been able to reach my goal of a sub-6-minute mile. Overall I think that my genius hour project could have been much better, but it did allow me to learn more about running and how much training can impact your performance. Although I am a little disappointed in myself, I do not regret doing this project at all.
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This week was just your average, run of the mill (ha see what I did there, "run"), boring week of running. Yet again I find myself rethinking my entire life because of this daggum cursed project. I'm really not enjoying this thing right now (pretending that at one point in time I did enjoy it).
The workouts were mediocre, but I did them anyway. I am thinking that the workouts are not really helping me a ton so I don't know if I will keep them up in the next few weeks. I might switch to some sort of weight training. I am really starting to look forward to the end of this project because to be honest, this actually sucks. I am not having fun anymore. At the beginning it was like "oh sweet, I am gonna get to see how much I can improve" and now it is more like "why did I ever think this was gonna be a good idea? Who needs to run anyway? That's what cars are for duh." Anyways I guess i'll be back next week to suffer some more. See you then. This week was kinda trash. I don't know what happened but this week just felt "off". I ran the mile this week but I somehow managed to run it slower than last week. Don't ask me how it happened, but I know that I wasn't happy about it.
When I'm running, I only check my time half way through and right when I finish. This keeps me from staying focused on how long it is taking me and allows me to keep all my attention on my breathing and strides and what not. I checked my time at half a mile and I was at 2:45. I was thinking to myself "ok i'm actually doing pretty good today" but when I checked my final time I was a little confused. I was slower than I was last week even though I was at a really good pace for the first half mile. I must've slowed down a lot in the second half because I should have finished the mile in well under 6 minutes if I kept up my pace. I hope that I bring my time back down next week because i'm not really in the mood to run another "slow" mile. I want to improve each week, not go backwards. Ima be honest with y'all... I did not even run this week. I know, I know, how could I possibly miss something that I enjoy oh so much? Here is my secret: I don't actually love running. "But Ty, why would you run if you don't like it?" Well, imaginary person who looks at my blogs, I don't really have an answer to that question at the moment, but i'll try and get back to you on that one ASAP.
I do have a valid reason for not running this week. Have you ever pulled a muscle in your leg and felt like if you took a step it was gonna fall off? Well, I have pulled all kinds of muscles in the past and they definitely don't feel good, but I pulled my groin this weekend at a lacrosse tournament and let's just say that I did not exactly enjoy the experience. I've pulled my groin in the past but I guess I pulled it really bad this time because it hurt like some junk. I didn't get to run this week but I will start next week again so I do not get too far behind on my running. I hope that this "week off" will not affect my mile times too much. I am going to group these two weeks together because nothing interesting happened throughout these weeks. I am not gonna make you read two separate blogs talking about how mundane the weeks were, so why not just smush them together?
The workouts were pretty typical. They went well, as usual, and my performance in the workouts was pretty average. I did not feel like I was doing the sprinting workouts any quicker than usual. The only thing different about the workouts during these weeks was that I shaved a couple seconds off of my half-mile each week. I am hoping to see more improvement in my mile times in the next few weeks. I have seen gradual improvement in my mile times but I am still not as far along as I would like to be. I am going to try and pace myself less and less and go for my pr more often. I hope that this will lower my mile times overall and allow me to run at a faster pace for a longer period of time. Welp. This week is was interesting. The workouts went well as usual. But the mile. Oh buddy the mile. It was wet and muddy outside so that was the first issue. Then the treadmill started acting up so I couldn’t run inside.
I always like to run in side on the treadmill because I can pace myself. I can keep a constant speed for the entirety of the mile and not waste energy. I mean, that isn’t the only reason I like to run inside but hey, it counts. I definitely don’t run inside because of the absolutely magnificent air conditioning. Nah definitely not the air conditioning. Im gonna shoot you straight her, I am starting to regret choosing this for my project. But I am too far into this junk to call it quits. So im gonna stick it out till the end for all you imaginary viewers out there. Wish me luck. I ran my second mile this week and let’s just say that I’m not exactly sure what happened. My mile time this week was so much faster than last week that I am questioning if I actually ran a whole mile or not. The tracker said I ran a mile in 5:22. I looked at the time when I stopped running and I instantly doubted my time.
I started doing the workouts this week and they went well. I did 10 sprints of 100 meters on tuesday. I am fairly good at sprints so this was not a huge challenge for me. On wednesday I ran a half mile in 3:15. This was relatively easy since I did not run a full mile. I did not notice a big difference in my running speed or stamina this week. Granted this is only the second mile that I have ran so far. Not only have I not had enough time to see the results, but I have not had enough time to figure out an average time for my mile yet. This week was a good time to get more information on which workouts are more effective and efficient and which ones are more futile. This week I ran my first mile. I did better than I expected considering that I have not ran a mile in half a year. I expected myself to struggle but it was actually easier than I thought. I set myself a pace of 7:30 but I finished in 7:20. It was not difficult for me to do this so I think that the following weeks will be much better than this time.
I stretched for about 10 minutes before I ran the mile and it felt great. I had not stretched in so long. I did not do workouts this week because I wanted to get the most realistic first mile. I wanted to see exactly where I started and have an accurate representation of my bottom line. I will start workouts next week. I will do two workouts each week and have one involving sprints and one involving longer runs. On the sprint days I will do 5 100 yard sprints with 30 seconds of rest between each. On the longer days I will run half miles at higher speeds so that I can work my way up to an overall faster pace. I look forward to improving each week more and more. For my genius hour project, I am going to be running a mile each week and tracking my progress along the way. I will be documenting many factors that impact my performance including temperature, time of day, and humidity.
I chose this as my project because not only will it get me into shape for lacrosse season, it will also decrease body fat, improve the health of my heart and keep me busy. Exercise is extremely important in our lives. Even though I am playing a sport right now, I am doing this project to further improve my strength, stamina and endurance. If all goes as planned, I will reach the goal of running a sub-six-minute mile. I am shooting for 5 minutes and 30 seconds but as long as I get below 6 minutes I will be satisfied. I believe that I will reach my goal for this project and I expect myself to surpass it as well. I always strive to do my best in every situation, and I want to push myself to see exactly where my limit is. I am very excited to start this project and am eager to see if I can meet my goals that I have set for myself by the end of the 12 weeks. Maybe if I get to the end of this project and enjoy it, I will continue to run to stay in shape and to improve myself more and more. |