Long way to go

During a recent trip to a bookstore, I flipped through a book on running, some "ultimate guide" or something. It was a thick book, hundreds of pages long, but for some reason it drew my attention. I grabbed it off the shelf and actually read through a decent amount (I found out I'm considered a basic competitor in this guy's system for instance).

There were so many different things the author wrote about, techniques, tips, definitions, information, etc., that I started to feel a bit overwhelmed. I wondered if I had gotten into the right hobby.

I didn't buy the book so I don't have it around to calm my fears so I'm just going to have to do that here. There are several things that I will do to help myself figure out this running thing.

First, I have to run of course but I have to do so consistently to figure out what amount of miles I put in a week in order to figure out a training plan. I think I run between 11 and 16 a week - which isn't a whole lot - but I could be off. I'd like to run around 20 to 25 miles a week but I don't know if I ever have or when the last time I ran that much was. So I need to do a better job of logging my miles, which I'm doing here on my master run list.

Also, I need to figure out if time is important to me. How much do I want to improve my time? Or am I just concerned about finishing races in a decent time? I know I probably will never run a 5K in 17 minutes but do I want to try and run one in under 20 minutes? Is that even possible? Should that matter to me? Honestly it doesn't but should it?

Now, there was a lot that made sense, and that boosted my confidence. I know what intervals are, tempo runs, some of the jargon like lactate threshold, and some of the heart rate stuff. So I have at least informed myself well in some regards.

But there certainly is a lot that goes into running, and that book sort of brought it all home for me. I suppose I will continue to approach it like I have everything else, day by day, run by run, little by little.
Its a good thing I have this blog to help me get to where I'm going. Otherwise I might not remember it all.