I suck at running. Discuss.

autumnblade75

allyphoe wrote: »

autumnblade75 wrote: »

dewd2 wrote: »

I used to suck at running and I hated it. Then I learned how. Now I'm good at it. And I love it.

If you are breathing hard, you are running too fast. As a beginner, the only time you should run hard enough to have trouble singing while your run is when you are racing a short race (5k or shorter) or a bear is chasing you.

You're not supposed to run from bears. They chase, like the predators they are. They're definitely faster than you.

You don't have to outrun the bear; you only have to outrun your buddy.

I run alone. Except for races. I ran a marathon in Alaska this year. There was advice about not running from bears in the literature from the Expo.

DX2JX2

Eire228 wrote: »

ksuh999 wrote: »

MeanderingMammal wrote: »

ksuh999 wrote: »

spiriteagle99 wrote: »

I disagree with the above: running more miles will make the miles you run feel easier. You will also probably get faster. Training for a 10k will make your 3 mile runs feel easy compared to your longer runs. Same when you go back to doing HMs.

If you are breathing hard on all your runs, you are probably running too fast. You might also want to get checked out for exercise induced asthma.

It's mostly about not overexerting herself. And hey if all it takes is a couple of weeks, great.

The point is, your advice is contrary to pretty much every coaching plan out there. Improving pace largely comes from adding volume initially.

The OP has barely run before. She's starting from zero. Zero to 10K. In a few weeks. What awesome plan is that?

Actually, the OP (that would be me) is a regular runner, and that is why the OP (again, me) is so frustrated at still being such a "slow" runner.

Though I'm feeling less and less frustrated the more everyone responds. You have no idea how helpful your responses have been! I'm doing a 4 mile run after work today, and I'm actually looking forward to doing it slowly. I'll do another short run in between, but I'm also looking forward to doing the same 5 mile run that inspired this post in the first place, but at a much slower pace. I'm quite sure I'm going to feel MUCH better this time than I did last week!

I never understood why anybody enjoyed running distance until I learned to run slow. Now I absolutely love my long slow run days and look forward to them. Faster workouts I can take or leave (but I usually take because running fast for short distances is it's own brand of fun).