Happy Monday!!!
My tummy is still recovering and really did not want to do anything today. I told it "too bad!" No regrets with that either. I can usually tell when those early morning body protests are cause to stay in. Today wasn't one of them.
The word for today's walk: FARTLEK! It's a fun little word and it always gets giggles. It's a Swedish word meaning "Speed Play." A lot of runners use fartleks to improve their speed so I'm starting to incorporate it into my walks. Unlike a tempo day, where you're pushing yourself hard the entire time, fartleks are essentially interval work. So, once I felt sufficiently warmed up this morning, I started doing some speed play. Unlike true measured intervals, I decided when I felt like pushing faster vs. staying at an easier yet still speedy pace. It had an interesting result. The two miles before I started them, I was averaging low 14s. When I shifted into fartleks, my pace was as fast as mid 12s at times. When shifted to a "casual" pace in these speed intervals, my casual pace had shifted faster and I was mid to upper 13s. Just like tempo sessions, you don't do this every day, but it's interesting to see the preliminary effects. If all goes well, I should have some new shoes arriving this coming weekend to help boost my speed. I tested them at a run shop before dinner on Saturday. Unfortunately, they didn't have the colorway I wanted, but I found them online. Just a crazy feeling with all of this. On one hand, I don't want to go too crazy with this and lose sight of walking for therapeutic purposes. I can easily get carried away with this kind of stuff and reminded myself this morning that I need to keep it about being the best me vs. how stressed I got in 2019 when trying to hit speed goals for race proof of time. On the other, I've never been fast at anything and it's kind of funny to be challenging myself for speed at this point in life. I even ordered some shorts with a turtle print to match this "speediest turtle" mindset that's got me going of late.
I also got a bit of sunrise today...
View attachment 1060448View attachment 1060449View attachment 1060450View attachment 1060451View attachment 1060452View attachment 1060453View attachment 1060454