I'm just back from a short run up and down the street. My Easy-3, as I like to call it. A good rejuvenator at the end of the day. For the second half of the run, all the way back down the hill, I kept my breaths matched to my steps. 4 steps to breathe in. 4 steps to breathe out. 4 in, 4 out. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4…. The last couple of Easy-3s I've run have been pretty slow. I'm still trying to recover from the holidays, I guess. Today's run started out a little lighter and freer in step but by no means fast. I wasn't intending to push it at all. Just get the legs going for a bit. I actually fall into that 1-2-3-4 counting at the beginning of many of my runs and today was no different. Usually I get distracted from it pretty quickly and move on to more great philosophizing. But I learned today that, if you stick with it, it really helps you to stay focused on pace, which becomes speed. I didn't end up with my fastest Easy-3 or even come close but I think the counting, the matching of breaths to steps, took a couple minutes off my time.
Tuesday, January 8, 2013
1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4
I'm just back from a short run up and down the street. My Easy-3, as I like to call it. A good rejuvenator at the end of the day. For the second half of the run, all the way back down the hill, I kept my breaths matched to my steps. 4 steps to breathe in. 4 steps to breathe out. 4 in, 4 out. 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4…. The last couple of Easy-3s I've run have been pretty slow. I'm still trying to recover from the holidays, I guess. Today's run started out a little lighter and freer in step but by no means fast. I wasn't intending to push it at all. Just get the legs going for a bit. I actually fall into that 1-2-3-4 counting at the beginning of many of my runs and today was no different. Usually I get distracted from it pretty quickly and move on to more great philosophizing. But I learned today that, if you stick with it, it really helps you to stay focused on pace, which becomes speed. I didn't end up with my fastest Easy-3 or even come close but I think the counting, the matching of breaths to steps, took a couple minutes off my time.
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I just walked to Prospect Park and back. I figured it was about six miles but I used google maps for my route and it was only 5.5. Oh well. It's in the high 40s and sunny, a very nice day.
Good thing Google Maps doesn't get to measure our fish...
As one might suspect, you go even faster with 1-2-3, 1-2-3, I did that yesterday and took another minute and a half off my 1-2-3-4 time. Neither day was I feeling much like running. It would be interesting to use this in a race. I don't think I could maintain 1-2, 1-2...
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