ZellyB
DIS Veteran
- Joined
- Sep 18, 2010
It is hard to walk in races so early and I am nervous about doing it at my first non-disney half at the end of the month. I feel like I still have a lot to learn and a lot of room for improvement and just need to buckle down and do it. When you started, did you follow the plan of 2 days during the week (30 min) and LR on the weekend like the plan suggests? I have been doing that with occasionally a 4th run, but I feel like I need to commit to 4 days/week. I also currently am using a 60 sec walk break and know I need to adjust to 30 sec, but changing intervals seems hard!
It can be really tough at first to walk if it's a crowded race and certainly many races still don't have a lot of Galloway racers. Honestly, I only saw a couple of other people near us who were doing intervals yesterday, although I heard someone at one point talking about it behind us. They were actually just explaining it to someone else and saying how they think it would be hard to do - training yourself to start running again after walking that is. I think people underestimate the need to train to interval running. They assume it's easier I think then just straight running and that's not necessarily the case if you aren't used to it. We do often just run at a slower pace out of the start corrals until we feel like there is adequate space to get into our intervals, but I've also done races where we did them right from the start. As long as you are aware of who is around you and signal your walks, you'll be fine. Just don't let anybody make you feel bad and run YOUR race.
We have always run the 3 days a week until this year. I finally acknowledged that for a marathon training plan, it just isn't enough miles to be truly trained. It was good enough to complete the distance, but not to feel really strong doing it. Moving to 4 days a week this cycle and increasing the distance on our maintenance runs has really made a difference.
Changing intervals WAS hard. Not gonna lie. We did it a couple of years ago, and that first year was tough. It took us a few months to truly adapt, but once we did, there is no doubt that it helped our speed. What interval do you run right now? Consider just gradually shifting the intervals, so if you currently run a 2:00/1:00, maybe do a week of 1:45/:45 and then maybe 1:30/:40 and then 1:00/:30. That way it doesn't feel as abrupt and you can adjust to it over time. Know that it will take an adjustment and if you need to take more time to adapt, then take more time. Once you get used to it, a minute of walking will feel like forever.