On April 18, 2016, one year ago today, I attended my first Couch-to-Crossfit class – and it began. Three weeks later, on May 9, I walked into my first regular Crossfit class. 6am, Monday morning, Celebration Crossfit. I didn’t know anybody. I couldn’t do most of the movements. I weighed about 315 pounds – I was enormous. And I was scared to death.
In the month of March, I went for a run 15 times for a total of 73.22 miles. For the year, I’m at 154.69 miles, which is a piss-poor start if I ever saw one. My non-resolution resolution was to get to 1,000 miles run this year … at this point I’m through 25% of the time but only 15% of the mileage.
You know … behind.
But let us try and be more positive, shall we? Last year in March I ran 32.11 miles and felt like one-million-damn-dollars for having done it. This year’s mileage represents a 228% increase over last year’s which is, not to put too fine a point on it, a lot. So even though this month feels light by new standards, the year-over-year growth is happening, and that is encouraging.
March also included my second half marathon, and it was a blast. That race – the Rock ‘n’ Roll USA Half in Washington DC – now stands as my official 10K, 10M, and half marathon PR. I’m hoping the 10K and half PRs fall before the end of the summer, but that 10-miler might stick around for awhile unless one of the upcoming halfs (as opposed to halves) does an official 10-mile split.
Capitol picture that came with my Rock ‘n’ Roll USA picture package…
Also encouraging is that I seem to be getting faster. On March 30th I ran 6 miles at an overall pace that was only 45 seconds per mile slower than my 5K PR pace … and I felt strong at the end. I think that the improving weather and the lower stress load (my next half isn’t for several weeks) has really relaxed things and helped out.
And April is off to a good start – on April 2nd I’ve already run twice, and I’ve got a 5K this weekend I’m going to use to try and crush my PR. Assuming everything goes well with the calendar, I’ll run around 90 miles in April and start getting some of that lost mileage back. I’m encouraged.