Do You Have A Need For Speed?

Is this what you were looking for? Cars, ladies, drifts, time-trials and sppeeeeeeedd!

Unforuntately, you are looking at the wrong blog.  I am talking about running speed.  How I am going to improve my pace in order to cover more distance over a set period of time.

I am not worried at the moment about what sort of pace I am setting as I have just began experimenting with the idea of running longer than I have before.  If it takes me 45 minutes to run 5-6km, then I am DAMN HAPPY I just made it to that distance.  However, as my fitness improves, I want to start looking at becoming the fittest I have ever been for this up and coming season of football.

I know long distances are not required in my type of football but if I can train my body and legs to keep running over longer periods at a quicker pace, I may be able to keep up the same pace throughout a whole 90 minute game.

There is a drill called a “12 minute run”.  You just walk, jog, or run for 12 minutes without stopping and see how far you can get.  The last time I did this drill, I was recovering from a knee injury and I still hit a fair good distance compared to some others in my team.  I am not going to compare myself with them but set myself a goal, higher than what I achieved then.  We set off around a oval and I did complete just under 4 laps. If nothing else, I want to be able to meet it but I definitely would like to smash it out of the park. 🙂

As I said in yesterday’s post, I scheduled a jog at 7.30pm while X-Factor was on.  This DID happen.  🙂 Warm up and cool down included, I covered a distance of 5.837km in 40 minutes.  I was pretty happy with that.  However, instead of invertal speeds, I chose to run at a quicker speed to see how long I could do it.

This is how my workout ended up:

0-5th minute – Increase from 4kmh to 8kmh (1 minute/1kmh increase)
5.01-10th minute – 9khm
10.01-30th minute – 10kmh
30.01-35th minute – 9kmh
35.01-40th minute – Decrease from 8khm to 4kmh (1 minute/1kmh decrease)

Before yesterday, I had never before run at 10kmh for longer than 3 minutes.  At first, I set myself a target of 10 minutes to push myself but as each minute passed by, I once again told my body that it wasn’t ready to give up, just one more minute.  There were times where I did in fact argue with myself (whoops :P) on that I was tired but that other little voice in my head said, “I promise you can stop after running 20 minute at this speed”. 20 minutes elapsed and I reduced my speed to 9kmh just liked I promised.  I was once again grinning from ear to ear and said, “Only 5 more minutes, you will be better off.”

I felt amazing after I finished even though my body was dripping in sweat.  I am getting better, I’m seeing improvement.  I know I’ve said it a few times now, but there is not better feeeling than being proud you have achieved something.  The only feeling that could top feeling proud of yourself is when someone else tells you they are proud of you.  That is exactly what has been happening over the last few weeks.  Remember my fitness buddy, Gerard? I have messaged him each time I have made an improvement and he has beamed praise on me and says he is so proud of my acheivements.  It kinda gives you that funny feeliung in your tummy and then makes you want to improve again just so that feeling stays there. 🙂

I feel like I could take on another 5km right now.  Maybe I just will tonight. 😉

C. x