A week or so ago I was out on a run and I decided to put a praise & worship channel on through Pandora because I was in the mood for churchy stuff. Then a funny thing happened. The song In Christ Alone started playing and I started running faster. The song has powerful lyrics and music that builds up as it moves forward, and that’s exactly the type of music you want while running. Since then I’ve gone on a few more runs where I play that station more, and I’ve been running better than ever before. To me, that means that I’m being helped along. Here are some of the lyrics to the song:
In Christ alone my hope is found;
He is my light, my strength, my song;
This cornerstone, this solid ground,
Firm through the fiercest drought and storm.
What heights of love, what depths of peace,
When fears are stilled, when strivings cease!
My comforter, my all in all –
Here in the love of Christ I stand.
Anyway, I’ve started training to run the Chicago Lung Run 10k again. I ran this race in 2011 and finished near the very end of the pack (I was the second to last male to finish). Hopefully I’ll be able to do better this time around. The plan is to follow Hal Higdon’s Novice 10k plan and update my progress here every week. So here is a brief summary of my runs from this week.
Tuesday – I ran 2.85 miles, which is more than the plan called for but the run was going well. My average pace was 12:20, but my goal for the run was to break a 10 minute mile. I did it. My first mile on the run was 9:29, which is a personal record.
Thursday – I didn’t run as scheduled because my legs weren’t recovered enough on Thursday morning and the rest of the day was occupied by 4th of July festivities. Instead I ran on Friday morning, and made it 2.03 miles at an average pace of 11:55. My goal for the run was to run for 15 minutes without having to take a break and walk. I ended up running for over 20 minutes straight – almost the entire run!
Sunday – My goal was to incorporate my earlier achievements from the week into my “long” run, by going for 20 minutes straight before walking. It was successful and I ran for 25 minutes before slowing to a walk for a 2 minute break. The run ended up a little shorter than I thought it was because of a gps malfunction that made me think I had gone further than I actually had (apparently Runkeeper thought I could run at a two minute mile pace for a while! too bad I had to correct it…). The end result was 2.89 miles with a 12:16 pace.
One of the highlights of my runs the last couple weeks was these flowers: