The dilemmas of speeding up.

I couldn't decide what to blog about today. I don't have any fun pictures to show you of my food... I had the same thing for dinner last night as I had for lunch and I'd already told you about that, so that was pretty boring. Lunch today I went out for my bosses' birthday with my work group and it was pretty boring too. And I have no idea what I'm having for dinner. So clearly, food was out of the question.

Then I thought about telling you about how I'm avoiding eating the birthday cookies right now. But that was a pretty short topic. See? we're done.

And so my mind started wandering (as it often does) and landed on a beautiful and wonderful topic - running! I knew today we needed to talk about some running, especially given how bad my last run was and how I need to make today's much better!

Since finishing my 5K, my goal was to speed up my runs. I've said it before and I'll say it again - I'm slow! One of my goals for October is to actually run a mile in sub 11:30 but I haven't yet. I have a hard time keeping track of my lap times since I don't have anything on me but my watch and my ipod when I run. I could just run one mile, but that's not fun. I won't burn any calories and I'll just want to go for longer. My first mile is never my fastest mile.

This is a really funny story and it's totally related to this topic - I promise. About 2 years ago I really wanted some knee high length boots to wear during the fall. I have very big calves, so clearly - it's really hard and embarrassing to try on boots that you can't zip up over your calves. I found some that were Jessica Simpson brand that were scrunchy, so even though I couldn't get them all the way up over my calve, it didn't matter because they were made to look scrunchy and didn't look that bad! As I was trying to jam my leg in the boot at the store, the sales woman was looking at me a little strange. I was mortified and I just blurted out the first excuse I could that wasn't, "Lady, I'm fat." I told this woman that I was a runner and that's why I had huge calves. She seemed very impressed and pleased with this answer (wow, she was stupid - as was I) and asked if I ran long or short distances. Well, I wasn't expecting this question and I blurted out, "Oh both.. I mix it up."

I've never felt more stupid in my life than that moment and clearly it's because I was TOTALLY wrong! First of all, runners have lean and long calves. Running tones your calves baby! Also, I've yet to hear anyone that both a short distance runner and long distance runner. Sure, long distance runners run shorter distances while training - but talk to anyone's who has ran a marathon and they will tell you they don't enjoy sprinting their heart out in the 400m.

(or at least, I assume. But I'm generally right so we'll leave it at that.) (kidding!)

So, the point of the story is that now I know I'm a distance runner. I love long distance running and even though running that first mile is like the hardest thing I've ever done, every.time.i.do.it. I LOVE those later miles. I am able to run slow, I can look at things around me and I can be all over my head for as long as I want. I'm not out of breath, I'm not hurting - I'm comfortable and SO happy with my life. Running long distance is my high and I can't wait until I can run more than 4 miles (soon - ish?)

The idea of running fast does not appeal to me whatsoever. Even now, when I tell myself to run as fast as I can for 1/4 a mile, I want to die after every time. I can run for 30 minutes doing HIIT and only burn half of what I burn in a long run. And I worked harder! That's not right people, it's just not right. Not to mention walking now is SO boring. Even when I'm warming up, I can't wait for it to be over so I can run.  So I have a dilemma, clearly. I'm slow. I don't want to train for a 10K or work on improving my distance until I've improved my speed. But I HATE the speed workouts. Hate them. And lately, when the option of a speed run or no run comes up, I've been choosing no run. But given the choice or speed run or long run, I always choose long run. Same with long run/no run. Long run please!

I love running distance. It's my thing. I've been told as I run more and more I'll speed up, and I have some. The first mile I've ever ran was at close to a 14 minute pace and I'm down to about 12:30 right now, just from increasing distance. But at what point do I need to stop improving my distance and working on my speed? At the pace I'm at now, it would take me 1.5 hours to run a 10K and that sounds like it sucks. I just can't make myself do these speed workouts for the life of me! I have considered maybe taking parts of my long runs and runner faster then at a slower pace. Almost like HIIT with jogging intervals. But, doing that for 3 miles straight sounds like it sucks. And I don't have the capability (or mental math ability) to know my pace on my own. It sounds like asking for a Garmin forerunner for Christmas is a must at this point if I want to get faster.

I don't know the answers to these questions. I don't know if any of you do? What I do know is that I love to run and I love to run distance. So maybe that's what I'll keep doing, for now? I have another 5K coming up one month from yesterday! I'll just work on running the 3.1 mile distance as fast as I can outside and get ready for that race? I'm not sure.. I feel guilty for not doing speed, but I also will never make myself do something I don't like doing. We all know what it leads to and I can't afford to keep missing runs.

Help!