This year I had some personal goals set for the year, to diversify my experiences with things I’ve never done before. One of them is to train with the USC Marathon Team and to run the LA Marathon in the spring. I’ve found I enjoy running a lot, and like how there is gratifying instant proof that you’re enhancing your skill through improved mile times. I also appreciate how individualistic running is – as a lot of my campus involvements are collaborative, it is great to just spend time with myself and my music.
During the week are 1 short run, 2 medium runs, a X-training session, and a long run (total of 5 practices per week). The two remaining days (before and after the long run) are rest days, giving your body time to prep for, and recuperate from, the long Sunday runs. My mile time (unsurprisingly) ranges by several minutes depending on how many miles I run. If I run 2 miles, I can run it as fast as 7 min a mile, but if i go up to 4 miles, my pace decreases to 8 min a mile. I’d like to decrease those times with increasing mileage over the next few months!
Each Sunday are our “long” runs, which start off relatively short, and increase throughout the season – this past Sunday started off at a conservative 6 miles, and our route took us downtown and back. While it was great to explore the city on foot, it was quite the inconvenience to have to wait at a stoplight every street block. Plus it was super sunny and HOT (90 degrees) which made it so much more exhausting than it should have been at 8am.
Overall, my time wasn’t too bad considering how short I am, the heat, and the delay of the stoplights (I ran it in 58 minutes). I feel like I also probably pushed myself a bit too hard at first, since I found myself up front with 3 super tall guys for the first 3 miles. At the time, it didn’t really occur to me to check my pace since it felt like the perfect pace for me, but later on I was definitely feeling the effects of the heat and lack of water. Oh well, at least I know how to improve my approach next time!
This Sunday the team is carpooling to Griffith Park and running 8 miles. Unfortunately, I will be in Houston with fellow VSA’s Emily, Caitlin, and Natalie for the Society of Women Engineers National Conference, which should still be super fun. I’ll be sure to make up the mileage sometime next week.
I’ll definitely check back with you guys on how my progress is going, and any other updates I have concerning USC Marathon Team! In the meantime, I’ll be sure to run as fast as I can and hopefully make up for my short legs by increasing my stamina!
