Starting out

My first assignment was to run for 45 minutes, keeping my heart rate at 135 bpm. I generally run around 155, which I know is too high but I've found it nearly impossible to bring it down to my goal of 145.

I'm already a slow runner, so to bring it to 135 bpm I was jogging so slow that I think it would have been faster to walk. It took some real effort for the first 1/2 mile or so. But once I found my groove I started to realize just how good I felt.

I love to run, and I nearly always feel good but this was something else. I felt like I could have kept this pace forever. I could have carried on a conversation, which never would have been possible before. I didn't even feel a twinge in my foot until I was about a 1.5 miles into it, and it never got bad.

It still would have been easier to pick it up and move a little faster, but it was a good lesson to me to actually feel what running at 70% of my max heart rate should feel like. I forgot to mention, this is the first time I've run without any headphones either. In the beginning, this would have been impossible for me. (It wasn't until I got my iPod that I could actually stand to run at all.) But it wasn't bad. I just spoke an encouraging mantra, varying it with each lap around the track so that I wouldn't lose count.

I ran 2.75 miles in 45 minutes.