Day 54: Tuesday, June 2, 2009

I did not feel well going into my workout. I had a neck pain that spread into a pretty nasty headache, but I hoped that working out would help alleviate the problem, and thus, I went to the gym to do my scheduled run on the treadmill.

I started off, after walking the first minute, running at 5.5 MPH - a slight increase over the 5.2 I had been running recently. And I felt really good considering the actual run at hand. My breathing was great, my legs were moving just fine, and I was able to keep a steady pace, however my head was pounding. I ran for 10 minutes before slowing to a walk for 2 minutes, where I resumed running for 5 more minutes before again feeling the need to slow due to my head. I ran another 5 minutes over the course of the final 12, but really slowed my pace early to start my cool down.

In total, I completed 2.41 miles in exactly 30 minutes. I ran at 5.5 MPH for 20 minutes for a distance of 1.83 miles, and walked at 4 MPH for 7:30 for 0.50 miles. I rounded out the 30 minutes with a gradual slowing pace for the final 2:30 where I completed the equivalent of another 0.08 miles.

The running was fine, but my head ached too much to complete a full run. Still, given how I felt, to know I was able to fairly easily complete 20 minutes of running at 5.5 MPH is quite an accomplishment. I know my goals are attainable when I am able to do good things on days like these, when I know I'm not anywhere near 100%. Even though it was a disappointment from the perspective of not over achieving, I am happy with the results for the day, and hope to certainly build on those results as the week progresses.