Knowing When to Take a Step

Sometimes, I have a hard time figuring out when to take the next step.  It's those times that I make a mistake and take a few too many steps.  The thing is, I can't afford to take too many steps because that will lay back my plan on getting in better shape and in better health.  A month ago, I was going on about 4-5 miles every time I ran... which wasn't too much.  In January, I was running 4 miles whenever I felt like it... and that wasn't much at all either.  It was mid-February when I got serious and started to take steps towards building up my body in a healthy manner, and because of my decisions, I started taking positive steps.  Starting out with a 4-5 mile base, I started running more consecutive days, knowing that I had to get myself moving in order to get anywhere.  As my consistent running became more of a norm, I waited til I was comfortable enough to jump up and do more.  A few 10 milers came into being, but by March, I was comfortably running a minimum of 5, going up to around 7 miles.  Now, I'm trying to make the norm 7.5 miles and push it towards 10 miles a day.

Running consecutively, if you happen to push too much, you'll end up hurting yourself, which will ruin your training and running career.  In order to take that next step, you have to know for certain that you ARE READY.  If you know you are ready, then that means that you can take that next step.  If you don't know... it's better not to push too hard.  On Saturday, I decided that I would go longer, and in three runs, I ran 16.87 miles.  Today, I ran 7.47 miles in 7:22 min/mile.  Saturday's run might have been a little too much, and because of that, I barely held on today.  My knees didn't feel exactly the best, but at this point, I'm going to stick with around 7.5 miles a day, unless I feel good enough to run 10 miles.  By April, I want to be at a point where 10 miles a day is nothing to me but a walk in the park.  It's not going to happen by just jumping into that sort of lifestyle, but step by step, I believe I'm getting to the right place.  One step at a time, making sure that the area in which I plant my foot is stable, I can get stronger and get to where I want to be.