Back in August, I started running regularly and recording my sessions. I recently completed a total of 75 miles of running across all my sessions. In this post, I’ll reflect on my journey so far and what I’ve learned.

The Beginning

Over the summer, I lived and worked in Austin, Texas. For the prior months of the year, I’ve lived a fairly sedimentary lifestyle. I enjoy these summers where I am forced to walk more places and take public transit since I don’t have access to a vehicle.

Two of my coworkers were really into running and one of them even regularly ran a few miles outside in the 95+ degree Fahrenheit weather. This didn’t immediately convince me to start myself, but it definitely planted the seed. Towards the end of the summer, I asked myself “What’s stopping me from running?” and took this as an opportunity to prove something to myself.

What do I need to get started?

At the beginning, I didn’t end up buying anything new. In Austin, I wore some sneakers from Keen footwear which I accidentally soaked a few times in sudden downpours. I also wear a Fitbit watch that has heart rate monitoring built in.

When I returned to New York, I ended up buying a Brooks running shoe. Shoes designed for running are usually lighter and have shock absorption. This makes for a more pleasant workout.

Did you use a training plan?

Initially, I used the couch to 5k running plan developed by the UK’s National Health Service (NHS). After completing that plan, I charted out my own path, with most of my sessions consisting of 30 minutes of running surrounded by 5 minutes of walking.

When I returned to New York, I saw that my city was hosting a turkey trot on Thanksgiving. That was a perfect amount of time to follow the program and see how things turn out!

Training Arc

With a race in mind, I had to make sure to not skimp on my training. Initially, I had an every other day schedule. Though as I adjusted back to my new schedule, this has become a little chaotic.

Running Inside vs Outside

The transition between summer and fall in New York state is lovely. It makes for a great time to run outside. However, as the months rolled by it started getting colder and colder. Now that we’re in the midst of winter, I’ve mostly abandoned running outside.

Some people swear by running outdoors versus using a treadmill. I’m fine with either, but there are definitely trade-offs.

With outdoor running there is much more visual stimuli. Instead of staring at a wall, the scenery changes as you move around. This is a huge pro when it comes to staving off boredom; which I find very important for a successful workout. The uneven ground also prevents repetitive strain injuries.

On the other hand, it’s very easy to keep pace with a treadmill. Another benefit is that you don’t have to plan out a route ahead of time. Though, I find it imperative to have some sort of distraction ready for when I do my treadmill runs. Initially I turned to watching YouTube videos, but I noticed that my posture would then suffer. I find podcasts to be a nice compromise.

Run Slowly

I’m far from an expert in this area, but it’s generally recommended to keep your heart rate low when you’re running. This helps improve your cardiovascular fitness over the long run. An informal test is to see if you can carry a conversation while running.

Formally, it’s recommended to stay in “Zone 2” while running which is about 60-70% of your max heart rate. We can use the Bruce protocol to find out our max heart rate, or for a much simpler approximation, we can use the Tanaka, Monahan, & Seals (2001) formula. $$ hr_{max} = 208 - (0.7 * age) $$ That means for a 30 year old their zone 2 heart rate lies between 112 and 130.

In Zone 2, the body can still supply energy using fat reserves and clear up the lactate before it builds up. It’s easy when running to go past this heart rate. The best way I’ve found to keeping it in zone 2 is to run really slow. Often much slower than you think you should be running. When I was first starting out, I wasn’t going much faster than walking pace.

Running with others

A friend recently got me to attend the local run club in the city. At first, I was nervous about joining since I thought it would only be full of people who ran their whole life. It turns out that it had people at all different points in the running journey. I joined once a week until it started regularly staying below freezing. I hope to attend again next year.

Either way, running can be a great excuse to get together with others!

The Turkey Trot

We then arrive at the big day! I showed up around thirty minutes before the event started. To give an idea of the scale, the Troy turkey trot had over 4000 finishers for the 5k.

At the beginning of the race, everyone lined up by flags marking different paces. I timed myself at a nearby track, and my last 5k was 35 minutes. Feeling optimistic, I lined up at the 11 minute flag.

Bam! The sound of the gun then went off signaling the start of the race – except there was no action. Since I was so far back from the start line, it took over 5 minutes before me and the others around me got to shuffling.

Luckily, when it comes to timing there’s the gun time and the net time. The net time is the time it takes once you cross the “start line” to hit the “finish line”.

With the majority of my running sessions featuring me, myself, and I, running with so many other people gave a huge energy boost. I let the energy get to me, and I didn’t end up running a consistent pace at all. I likely ran a little too fast in the beginning, resulting in short walking breaks towards the end. Also I underestimated the energy it would take to weave around other people.

I hit the finish line at 34 minutes and 14 seconds! It’s pretty exciting to hit a new personal best during a race.

Focusing on the race, I didn’t end up taking too many photos. Instead here’s a blurry snapshot from the finish cam and a selfie of me with my participation medal.

Onto the future!

With that milestone completed, now it’s time to think about what’s next. Do I train for a 10k? A half-marathon? Nothing is set in stone yet, and I’m keeping my eye out for future events.

I mentioned that one of my challenges with running is starving off boredom. While the race does inject a new form of energy, I still currently can’t see running for multiple hours!

Beyond running itself, I find it fun to look at my logs. For example, we can take the times from the Troy turkey trot, and plot my performance on the histogram of all participant net times.

Additionally, from my overall training log, I can see that I run on average 2.5 miles during my 30 minute runs. I’m excited to see how these metrics improve over time.