Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Good Bad Ugly of Morning Run

Good

I was all kinds of happy when Mr UPS man came up the driveway yesterday evening and dropped off my package from Zappos. My Lotta Breeze Capris are here! And they fit! They performed well on their debut 5 mile run this morning. YAY!

[Sorry that I don’t have a photo, I was running late (pun intended) and really couldn’t take the time to get a photo this morning. I’ll get one some other time though, I promise.]

Bad

99% of the time, I come across people out on the trail who seem harmless. Most runners and walkers are like-minded in that they are out there for fitness/fun. This morning, however, I came across someone best described as a Crazy Lady. I couldn't understand what she was trying to say to me, perhaps it was a friendly (enthusiastic) warning about loose dogs up ahead, but she made me very uncomfortable. As a result, I made the decision to reroute myself to put as much distance as possible between myself and Crazy Lady and whatever it was that had her all up in arms.

The unintended rerouting messed me up a bit, because I was no longer quite sure where my turnaround point should be. It worked out okay in the end though; I guessed right and managed to get the full distance in. But now I’m a little leery about taking that other path on a weekday morning… :-(

Ugly

There is a reason I don’t generally follow the Galloway method. It’s not that I don’t believe in it, I do. I think it's great. It’s just that I suck at it. The method involves defined intervals. A seasoned Galloway runner would do something that resembles this: RUN walk RUN walk RUN walk RUN

When I try to implement it, it goes more like this: RUN walk RUN walk run WALK run WALK WALK.

And that’s basically what happened on my 5 mile morning. Needless to say, I was not happy about the resulting splits...

16 comments:

  1. One ride, we had a crazy one roll up on us, jean shorts, funky helemt. He talked about going into space and traveling with a band, we dropped him fast, pretty much busted all our lungs, he hung for about a mile, then he lost the wheel and we made sure he couldnt latch back on. Scary.

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  2. Sorry about the crazy lady. Such a bummer when something throws off a perfectly good run. Hopefully she was just passing through on her way to crazy-town and you won't see her again.

    I like your caps/lowercase description of your Gallowalking. Very effective way to portray it. I had a similar experience when I gave something similar a try in the past. One of my biggest problems is my legs tighten up so quickly, that I have a hard time hitting the gas again once I get to walking.

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  3. Galloway method definitely requires discipline. If you do it right, it saves energy. Should be enough to get you away from the crazies :-)

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  4. Yikes to the crazy lady! Hopefully that is the last you will see of her.

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  5. For me walking is like eating chips. The more I eat the more I want!

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  6. Oh no crazy lady!

    I didn't know what Gallowalking was until you talked about it in this post! :) Interesting that there is a method to run/walking...I will have to look into that.

    I've always just run until I couldn't run anymore. I actually have never done a run walk with the exception of when I started my couch to 5K program last year.

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  7. I don't think I would avoid that route on weekdays until I run across her again.
    I'm glad you liked your capris. ;)

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  8. I'm a fan of the Galloway method. It has helped with my half marathons. Hopefully it will do the same for my first full. =)

    Sorry to hear about crazy lady. yikes!

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  9. This Galloway running looks like an interesting idea - there was one lady in my last race that did this (as she past me!)

    Lisa, I tagged you as a versatile blogger here.

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  10. I like Team Marcia's likening walking to eating chips! :)

    I find that once I changed from running to something else (walking/staying still), my knees will "lock up" on my and won't move.

    I hope that's your first and last brush with Crazy lady.

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  11. i hope you don't run into crazy lady anymore! why can't people just be 'normal'/not remotely sketchy...

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  12. Not nice to run into a Crazy Lady. I'm always careful but sometimes these crazy people just find you.

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  13. Ugh on the Crazy Lady!

    It took me forever to get into the Galloway Method. Every time I start walking, I hear my 7th grade gym teacher yelling at me that I'm lazy.

    But I like it now.

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  14. I wore my capris this morning too! So glad yours fit and you like them.

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  15. Eei crazy people are scary when out running. Maybe carry some pepper spray or something to make yourself more comfortable?

    I tend to hit a similar rhythm when I'm doing walk/run intervals. Lol!

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  16. I'm not a fan of Galloway either. I took regular walk breaks while I was training for a half (partially because I was training in 90 degree weather) but walking feels so much more comfy than running, so of course when I'm walking, I wonder why I'd want to start running again!

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