Less Minimalist Running

Back in June I decided to try running without headphones to see how it felt. Overall I like it; I pay more attention to how I’m running and what my body is saying, and I can hear my surroundings (which is nice when I’m on those parts of the Stevens Creek Trail away from traffic). But much of my body is saying seems to be “why not take it a little easier?”; I’ve lost around 15-20 seconds per mile in the last couple of months. So perhaps a little less listening is required.

IOver the next few weeks I’m going to experiment with a mix; a run with headphones, a run without headphones (since I do like it), and I’m also trying out running intervals one day a week (with headphones, because running intervals on a track is, let’s face it, rather boring). I tried out the first interval set today, and it ended up being faster than I expected. We’ll see if it helps recover some of the time I’ve lost over the last couple of months on my regular route.