My frustration at my lack of progress continues but to be fair to me I am not going running with as much regularity as I used to. It is terribly cold here and we have entered that part of the year where we aren't getting snow such much as we are getting sleet and freezing rain. I can deal with cold and snow on a cleared path in the park, it's actually kind of nice, but getting soaked and being in the cold, well that's just irresponsible. I absolutely refuse to use a treadmill because it bores me to tears.
I've been attempting to maintain a 7:30 pace lately as I have all but abandoned getting below 7 minutes per km these days. I'm afraid that I am just not capable of that anymore and there are a variety of reasons why this is the case. It could be because I am back on mostly weights during the winter and have actually gained muscle because of it and this could be slowing me down, as silly as that sounds. Also, I don't go on regular runs in the winter because it is extremely difficult to get motivated to put on my cold weather gear for a run, especially when I can hear the wind howling through my windows as I am contemplating putting my shoes on.
I made the same mistakes or humorous accidents I suppose you could call it, that I always do, in that I started out at a pace that is far faster than I should be running and as is always the case no matter how much I try to prevent it, I find a massive burst of speed at the end once again.
Those really slow parts in the middle are likely when I was feeling the burn and chose to walk instead of run. I find myself getting gassed out pretty easily in the winter and I don't know why that is, it probably has something to do with the cold air and my lungs. I have no idea. For me, I am always a bit more steadily paced on my runs in the spring and the fall. My winter and summer times are always worse than the other seasons.
I'm not going to give up on this but I am kind of struggling to figure out how I can get better. I eat right and exercise almost every day, so to me it doesn't make much sense that my body will not allow me to go faster than this. Perhaps age is just catching up with me. Regardless, I will continue to do these things in order to be about as good as I can be. I will not allow this to frustrate me out of trying. I reckon I could probably get better consistency in times if I had a Garmin watch... perhaps I need to investigate those further and go ahead and take the plunge and buy one.
Don't let a little setback encourage you to give up. I "gave up" in my 30's and got fat because of it. Now I actually kind of like the guy in the mirror and if I can accomplish this, I believe that almost anyone can