Class 7

Thanks to today's guest Keith McConnell for his good advice. He teaches the Fitness Walking class, which isn't offered in summer, and is a nationally certified instructor of Chi Running and Walking.

With Friday off, the week's fast day will move to tomorrow. You'll total one or two miles, same as last week. Except this time you will split the distance in half and take a rest break between. It's called interval training.

TODAY'S EASY HALF-HOUR

(everyone went about 30 minutes; meant to be relaxed for recovery between tougher runs; attendees listed here)

Jason

Haley

Jasmine

Linfeng

Challace

Jacob

Marissa

Sara

Dustin

Huimin

Yidi

LESSON 7: TAKING TIME

Your second most valuable piece of equipment, after shoes, is.... no, not shorts and not T-shirt. You can wear other clothes than those. Your next most vital item is a watch. Buy a digital model with a stopwatch feature, and make time your main way of keeping score. Time can make you an instant winner by telling exactly how fast you ran a distance, and maybe how much you improved your personal record (“PR,” in runner-talk). Another, more subtle value of the watch: It lets you run by time – by minutes instead of miles. This has several benefits: freeing you from plotting and measuring courses, because minutes are the same length anywhere... easing pressure to run faster, because you can’t make time pass any faster... finishing at the assigned time limit no matter your pace, which settles naturally into your comfort zone when you run by time.