Week 5, Day 2 - Too much of a good thing?

Ain't nothing gonna break my stride

Nobody's gonna slow me down

Oh no, I've got to keep on moving

Ain't nothing gonna break my stride

I'm running and I won't touch ground

Oh no, I've got to keep on moving

Those are the words that went through my head as I started my first eight minute segment this morning. I wasn't sure what to expect when I started out this morning, but I quickly felt that I was hitting my stride and was enjoying the run. For the most part, I have been running the same route the couple of weeks. I do it in part because there is a good amount of dirt roads and paths and I find it much easier on my body to run on dirt. Also, I like being able to see how much further I am running as time goes on. It is another way for me to measure my success.

What's funny is the fact that though I am seeing the same scenery day to day, I am always seeing something new as well. Sometimes it is something like a bird's nest I didn't notice before or a nice yard with pretty flowers that I am enjoying for the first time. Other times, like today, I see new people walking their dogs, letting them take care of business on other people's lawns and leaving it for the homeowners to clean up later. I know you all know how much I love bad animal owners and if you knew me personally, you'd know how hard it was for me to keep my mouth shut this morning. Obviously, it would be unwise to confront someone when I am all by myself and there are hardly any other people out and about yet, but some people really need to hear how lame they are!  I can only hope that my disgusted gaze burned some self-awareness into John Q. Lamo's  thick, inconsiderate skull.

But I digress...eight minutes went by really fast and then my 5 minute recovery walk began. And here's the thing: three minutes would have been enough and five minutes was too much. Once the next run began, I felt it was much more difficult to carry on than it was last time after a three minute recovery walk. I am very happy to have found this program and am grateful to it for the progress it has helped me achieve, so forgive me for being critical, but I don't understand why such a long recovery walk would be built into the workout when the very next day in the program more than doubles your run time without any walking break at all. I don't understand the logic. Shouldn't we be gradually adding more running time and less walking time? I am going to repeat this day once more before moving on and I think I will try reducing the walk time. I'll let you know how it goes. Until then keep thinking positive. I know you can you it just as I know, I CAN DO IT!