My JND Running Log

[jamesndawson]

Sun. July 7. 3+ miles, 33 minutes, NO RESTS! (I'm not counting the 3-6 second pause to scratch a distracting itch on my shin, possibly a mosquito bite.) Started off with good energy but I didn't expect it to last long (pessismistic I guess), but about the 3/4 mark or later I decided I was going to go the distance. Knee barely bothered me at all if any, and if it did, it started much later than usual. Part of the improvement might've been that it was about 8-8:30 a.m. and 65F, as opposed to afternoon and 88F last time, but I'm surprised my time was only 2 minutes better.I FELT I'd done so much better. But I'm pleased with it nonetheless.
Got my pedometer and am slowly puzzling through the instructions. I guess I need to just learn how to use it, as I usually do, through experimentation. (I'm near-dyslexic with technical material.)

[jamesndawson]

Sun., July 14. 3+ miles, no rests, 33 minutes. Started out a bit sluggish, having kind of an achy morning, so I expected a lot of rests, but surprisingly, needn't feel a strong need for any, beyond the usual laziness, which I managed to control with a firm but gentle mindfulness. Felt the need for a bowel movement about 2/3 the way through. Nothing urgent, though a little distracting. About the 3/4 point or later my usual knee soreness kicked in but I was determined to go the distance. I was visible limp-running the last 6 to 8 blocks.

[jamesndawson]

Thurs., July 18. 3+ miles, one rest, 33 minutes. Nothing much to add. Started out strong. Knee pain set in about 2/3 to 3/4 point.
Sun., July 21. 3+ miles, no rests, 32 minutes. One minute faster! Knee pain started a little later this time, and wasn't too bad for the duration. The last couple of blocks, a cat came out and was getting read to cross the road. It was actually well enough into the road to get hit, and it was a busy street, with fast moving traffic. I moved out into the street to shield it from any cars. (They were a ways off, but it could've darted into the road and by that time the traffic could've been upon it. Many wouldn't care about a cat, but they'd stop for me.) It saw me and ran back into the alley way. Hope it doesn't try it again. I'm not fully recovered from seeing a little dog get hit by a car. It was awful.
Sun. July 28. I ran in a 5K race (3.125). My time was 35:46.1, about 4 minutes faster than last year. I came out 17 of 25 in my 50-54 age & gender group. No rests, except maybe the couple times I took water at the water station which was only a few seconds of walking and throwing away the paper cup. (I wanted to be polite.) Although I was pleased with my performance and time improvement, I was a little disappointed, because I had it down to 32 minutes in my latest practice. However, I re-measured my route, and what I'd thought was 3+ miles, turned out to be barely three, and maybe a little less. Maybe the extra .125 miles of the race accounted for the extra 3 minutes in my time.

[jamesndawson]

Wed. Aug. 7. 3 miles, 5 rests, 31 minutes. Knee pain set in a little early. Not sure if I felt a little more winded, or if the sensation of lung burning was just heartburn. It was fairly subtle. Maybe it was due to the unintened 10 day break. For some reason, despite the rests, my time improved by a minute. Are rests okay during a run, if they improve ones time? Or is the object to avoid them. Does it matter?
Thurs. Aug. 15. 3 miles, no rests, 30 minutes! Knee pain set in a little later. As usual, my mind kept telling me to give in to my laziness, so it was a constant battle to resist. But I'm pleased with my 30 minutes time, my best yet.
Sun. Aug. 25. 3 miles, 2 rests, 32 minutes. Not much to say. Felt like I ran at a pretty good clip, but apparently the clock says otherwise.

[jamesndawson]

Wed. Aug. 7. 3 miles, 5 rests, 31 minutes. Knee pain set in a little early. Not sure if I felt a little more winded, or if the sensation of lung burning was just heartburn. It was fairly subtle. Maybe it was due to the unintened 10 day break. For some reason, despite the rests, my time improved by a minute. Are rests okay during a run, if they improve ones time? Or is the object to avoid them, to improve ones endurance. Does it matter?
Thurs. Aug. 15. 3 miles, no rests, 30 minutes! Knee pain set in a little later. As usual, my mind kept telling me to give in to my laziness, so it was a constant battle to resist. But I'm pleased with my 30 minutes time, my best yet.
Sun. Aug. 25. 3 miles, 2 rests, 32 minutes. Not much to say. Felt like I ran at a pretty good clip, but apparently the clock says otherwise.
Sun. Sept. 1. 2:25 p.m. 90 degrees. 3 miles, 5 rests, 33 minutes. Probably ran too soon after eating, about 2 hours. My stomach was uncomfortably tight, but if I didn't take advantage of the impulse, I might've skipped today altogether, and actually was considering it.
Maybe it's time to start expanding my route and just walk-running it. I need to stop procrastinating on figuring out how to use my pedometer.

[jamesndawson]

Saturday, Sept. 14, 6:48 a.m. 3 miles, 3 rests, 32 minutes. Oh man, I didn't realized it's been 2 weeks since my last run. I guess I've been busier than I thought.
I would've only had two rests, but I encountered two dogs, one a pit bull and the other what looked like a pit bull mix on the sidewalk. They were with an older man who I thought was their owner but learned a few minutes later wasn't, they were strays. As it turned out they were friendly, but I didn't want to run past them because I thought it might trigger the chase-prey reflex. They followed me all the way home, and wanted to come in, but I couldn't let them. They were collarless. Hope they'll be okay. Anyway, I might've shaved off a minute or two from my time, but I slowed down a bit for them.

[jamesndawson]

Tues. Sept. 24, 3 miles, barely any rests, 37 minutes. My rests weren't much than 5 seconds each, or less, just stopping at lights and letting a van pass. I took it very easy this time, pretty much just a job, some stretches barely that, as my ankles felt a little stiffer, achier than usual. My time shows that. Knee pain kicked in about halfway, but strangely, it subside toward the end.
I'm thinking of trying a new strategy. I'll run twice for endurance, avoiding rests for a set distance, right now, my 3 miles, and then I'll do a free walk-run for a longer distance. I got a pedometer at the dollar store and it's much simpler than the Sportline I got from Walmart. All you do is zero it, clip it on your waist somewhere and start walking. It counts steps, but I've measure my stride and the calculation in miles will be easy. Hope it's reasonably accurate and reliable.
Tues., Oct. 8, unsure of distance, 32 minutes. As I wrote in another post, I tested out my dollar store pedometer and it measured my "3 mile" route as 2.8 miles,so I concluded it was reasonably accurate. Now I'm not so sure. I walked the route I was going to do my run-walk on and it came to about 5.4 miles. This calculation is under the actual distance, because when I got home I dropped it and it zeroed out, so I just rounded down to the nearest thousand steps. But when I ran it today, it seemed a bit too easy and my time was close to that on my old route. So I suspect there must have been some malfunction, as I couldn't have actually improved after taking 2 weeks off. I'll walk it again and see what I come up with.
My legs were pretty achy and heavy starting out, but got a little better as I warmed up. I wish I knew if there was anything I could do about all this joint soreness and hand-numbness. I started Dr. Frank's pain spray again today. Hope it helps.

[jamesndawson]

Fri., Oct. 18. 2 miles, 27 minutes. Several factors made my run shorter than I wanted it today----a long hiatus after a bout with sciatica, the need for a bowel movement that developed soon into it which was making it much too uncomfortable to continue and unusually bad knee discomfort.
I measured that walk-run route again and it only came out to 1.3 miles. (But looking at my calculations again, something seems wrong. Ah, I wish I could get all this right.)

[jamesndawson]

Sun., Oct. 27. 3.35 miles, 43 minutes, ran-walked. My runnings slacked off so much recently I wanted to ease back into with a run-walk. Although I'm not really counting on my run-walks, I probably rested/walked about 5-8 times. My ankles were pretty heavy today. I found the source of my confusion with my calculations last post, and I'm confident again that my pedometer is accurate enough.

[jamesndawson]

Wed., Nov. 6. Ran-walked, 5-6 miles, 56 minutes. My first rest seemed even further into the run than last time, maybe about 3 miles, so maybe this strategy is working. I took a few wrong turns so it wasn't quite the same route as last time, and may've been a little longer.

[jamesndawson]

Sun., Nov. 10. 3-4 miles, 48 minutes, ran-walked. I was going to try the 5-6 mile route, but just wasn't up to it. I did measure that route, but when I got home I found my pedometer had dropped off somewhere. I suspect it was at the bookstore where I stopped for a moment, probably when I took my wallet out. A boy of about 9 or 10 on a bike with 3 or 4 of his friends, tried to play chicken with me. They all thought it was funny. Budding jerks. I never acted like that when I was a kid, certainly not to adults.
Friday, Nov. 15. 2 miles, 34 minutes. Felt sluggish and uninspired today, thus the short run. Rested a lot. Hope to do better another day.
Mon. Nov. 19. Ran-jogged-walked. 3-4 miles. 42 minutes.
Sat. Nov. 23. Ran-jogged-walked. 3-4 miles. 41 minutes.
Mon., Dec. 2. Ran-jogged-walked. 3-4 miles. 45 minutes. Just got over a cold recently. I need to get back into a more regular schedule. Knee pain set in early.

[jamesndawson]

Sun., Dec. 8. Ran-jogged-walked. 2 miles. 30 minutes. Feeling uninspired & sluggish. I've gained weight. Too much fattening food. (I'm addicted to chocolate-peanut-butter sandwiches. Not good.) Tripped & fell on a buckling sidewalk. Quite a tumble. Skinned my knee under two pairs of sweat pants. (It's 15 F.) Will keep trying. I'll get back up to my old standard.
Fri. Dec. 13. Ran-jogged-walked. 2 miles. 30 minutes. Uninspired again. Not sure why.
Thurs., Dec. 26. Ran-jogged-walked. 3-4 miles. 42 minutes. Felt a little more inspired today. Knee pain set in early, about the 1st mile, but eased up later in the run. Also got my second wind about half-way through. I feel I'm back on track.

[jamesndawson]

Wednesday, Jan. 1. Ran-jogged-walked. 3.33 miles, 40 minutes. Energy pretty good, but the figures show the performance is sub-par. What I have been listing as 3-4 miles, to the extent my pedometer is accurate is only 3.33. But even that I'm not sure about. My last measurement of this course was 8.539 steps, but I found a scrap of paper saying before that it was only 7,379, a half-mile difference. So it's a little hard to guage my progress. But the 12 minute mile pretty much does reflect a more accurately measured route in my last 5K race, so maybe it's decently accurate after all.
Sat., Jan. 4. Ran-jogged-walked, 2 miles, 25 minutes. Uninspired.
Wed., Jan. 15. Ran-jogged-walked, 4.3 miles, 55 minutes, minute/mile: 12.8. Actually I measured the distance as 4.39, but I rounded down to the 10th to account for a probable margin of error. I may try to run this distance twice a week, rather than slacking off as much as I have been. Maybe I can get my speed up that way.
Mon., Jan. 20. Ran-jogged-walked, 2 miles, 27 minutes. Very sluggish & uninspired today.

[jamesndawson]

Sat., Jan. 25. Ran-jogged-walked, 4.3 miles, 57 minutes, 13.3 minute/mile. Stopped to use the bathroom. I don't know how much this lowered my minutes/mile. Had a bit more energy this time, mental and physical.

[jamesndawson]

Tues. Jan. 28. Ran-jogged-walked 3-3.5? miles. 63 mins.
Fri. Feb. 21, 2 miles, 27 mins. I've been lazy the last month, with an unintentional break of almost a month, so I'm slowly working my way up from square one. I'm just beginning to get over a really bad neck ache I woke up with a couple days ago. It's the worst I've ever had in my life. I've been out of glucosamine-msm for the past couple weeks and I think that may be the culprit. I've got some on order. Should've done that sooner.
Thurs., Feb. 27. Ran-jogged-walked. 3.3 miles, 4.1 mins., 12.4/mile.
Sat. Mar. 8. 3.3 miles, 45 mins., 13.6/mile.