Pacing.

J and I went out for the first run since he's been sick. He had a nasty virus since a week from last Wednesday so he had been laying in bed for pretty much an entire week. I told him to take it easy since his chest and lungs still aren't completely perfect.

We started off in the usual way, but I noticed that the pace that we started off at was much slower than the pace I had been running. I know that they say that running slower can improve your endurance, but I think in this case it was past the point of efficiency for me. It's hard to know what is "right", since I've never been actually coached in running, but I could feel myself getting tired before we even hit a quarter mile, so I had to accelerate and leave J behind. I took off down the path that we normally go down, reached the end, and decided that I would try to run until I saw him again. I figured that even if he didn't start running again, I would probably be able to reach him before I got tired. I saw him sooner than I even expected, and was very pleased with myself that I was able to run that far. It wasn't much further than I had run the last time (only 0.8 miles), but it still was a slight improvement and I wasn't totally spent when I saw him either... I could have kept going if I wanted to. So that was good. We walked back down the path I had run down and then out of the woods. I ran from the edge of the parking lot all the way back to the entrance to the park, which is 0.35 miles. This is the longest I have ever run on a second interval of running, which is a pretty cool achievement. The total running amount is just slightly less than what I did last time, but the second interval I ran last time was a measly 0.12 miles or something like that. It's cool to see that I really am improving with very little "effort" on my part... I just go out and run every few days and go farther and farther. Still hoping to run a full mile within a week or so... we will see how it goes.