News Flash: running still sucks (for me)

[forgotten_aria]

It's that time again. When I start training my 1.5 mile run for my black belt test. I'm trying very hard not to whine about it too much on social media this time, but this is my journal, so I get a few honest posts here, whiny or not.

I'm a month in. This is my first time training over the winter (usually it was from April to October.) Luckily my CrossFit gym got a passive treadmill, so I'm paying $20 a month for 24/7 access to the gym to use it. Sadly, it doesn't quite do the distance perfectly, so I don't know 100% if I'm running at the right pace. Since I'm still struggling with the intervals, it might not matter if the pace is perfect.

So far I'm really stuck on the run 90s, walk 90s, run 3m, walk 3m, repeat. I'm having a lot of trouble doing both 3 minutes. Sometimes I can, sometimes I can't. It feels so basic too. I hate how much running just makes me feel like a failure. Like it's something anyone with two working legs, heart, and lungs should be able to do.

It's also exhausting me pretty badly. I don't want to give up any CrossFit or TKD, so it means I have to scale my CrossFit pretty hard just to not run my self into the ground. My body has always been slow on recovery. I've had to quit my lyra classes because I just don't have the energy/recovery for it. (Though I have two classes that are going to expire, so I better get some in.)

I've been wavering between "is this worth it? 6 months of misery to maybe/maybe not get under the 18m mark?" and "I have to do this." He's changed the test so I don't have to hit that to pass as long as I do well enough on everything else. But this is also what being a black belt is about. Doing something hard for the same of another goal you do want.

I have been mostly keeping my tendon happy, but just barely. I can feel it get angry from time to time and then I give it some heat and it settles down.

I just don't hold out much faith that the training is going to work this time. I have a spreadsheet of numbers from the past 3 trainings, so I know what I should be expecting.

Comments

[totient]

What's your warmup? This is looking like your body isn't ready for that first long interval yet.

[forgotten_aria]

5 minutes of walking, with some extra moves, to get the kinks out.

[totient]

My first move would be adding something to that, with the aim of having your heart rate a little higher at the start of the first interval. Maybe your walk is brisk enough that another 5m walking would do it. It looks like that first interval is making a nice warm-up so maybe just double the first short interval and have the second one also be short instead of trying to do a long one there. ETA: That is: 5m walk to warm up, 90s run, 90s walk, 90s run, 90s walk, 180s run, 180s walk, 90s run, 90s walk, 180s run, 180s walk. I presume you know this and only didn't include the cool down at the end so we'd get more zoom on the intervals, but just in case: don't skip the walk at the end, you can hurt yourself by not cooling down as much as by not warming up.

[forgotten_aria]

yes, the warm up and cool down aren't in the data. There is a 5-8m cool down walk.