The itch

I've sworn off running for the rest of the year. Okay, not quite, but I'm definitely not going to train for another race this year. But I suppose it's ingrained in me. I'm already thinking about running a 5k in January. I've really got to find another hobby I guess.

Anyway, in case I do want to start training for a 5K, I decided to see what sort of training schedule would await me. It looks both challenging and exciting and actually had the opposite effect that I'd hoped for. I wanted to have something so difficult that I wouldn't want to go near a race for much longer than a few months.

I put in some relevant data into a race/training calculator on Runner's World's web site and this is what it spit out:

To train for a 5K in six weeks, I'd have to run three times a week. Mondays, Wednesdays and Saturdays would suffice. Each Monday would consist of an easy two-mile run... not that the run would be easy but that I should run it at an easy pace. The Wednesday workout would be a combination of speedwork and tempo runs - I'd have to run, say, 3 miles at a pace of 8:38 with a warm-up/cool-down mile on either side.

The Saturday runs would be the most difficult part of this training regimen. I'd run six miles on the first two Saturdays, seven miles on the following two Saturdays and eight miles on the Saturday before the race. That's quite a bit of mileage!

Still, none of this is daunting. Now, I've never ran 8 miles before so that would be an obstacle but I've run 7 miles and felt like I could have gone further.

Anyway, I suppose when I don't go to the gym and run I have idle thoughts about running. And this is what I come up with. I really should be taking it easy, both physically and mentally. The physically part I've got down. It's just the mental aspect that needs some work.