Today I went for a run at Princes Park and to make it interesting, I thought I'd do 1 km easy then 2 km hard and repeat. I wanted to run the 2 km in 12 mins (6 min/km pace) since I figure that's about as fast as I can run.

So I set off on the first 2 km section then had to stop to do up my shoelace. Dang! I felt like I was doing a hard yet comfortable pace (I'm actually starting to understand that term) but wasn't sure if I could make it in 12 mins. Got to the marker and checked my watch - 11:13. Oh my.

I jogged very slowly for the next km, thinking I couldn't beat that time and that I'd actually be a lot slower having shot my load but took off for the next 2km trying my hardest. I actually pushed myself as hard as I could for the last 1/2 km, prolly too fast since I finished up feeling rather like vomitting. But I did it in 10:48.

I know that's not fast for a lot of runners but it's much faster than I ever thought I could run. I think what made the difference is that today for the first time since I had my big, rib-bruising fall I've felt confident in staying on my feet. It's only when I started relaxing that I realised I've been tensing up quite a lot when I run and, of course, that leads to get tired more easily and getting all stiff and sore. I really loosened up a lot today and had the most enjoyable run I've had in a long time - well apart from the vomit feeling but I soon got over that.

I've been reading a few of the articles on this site (Chi Running) and really want to get the book when I have spare funds for things like running books. In the meantime, I've been reading snippets of it in Border's Cafe.