(A) Running

BEFORE THE ACTIVITY:

PROJECT/ACTIVITY SHORT DESCRIPTION:  

During summer I will not be able to carry out my regular CAS activities as I will not be home. To make up for this, I have planned an activity for July which consists in going out for a 1 mile run every day, to keep up my stamina and stay in good shape as to not return to surf or ballet in September and struggle. Running is a cardio workout which helps strengthen muscles, which is a vital component of the other sports I practice year-round, ballet and surf. I will be at my grandmother’s house this summer, in New Jersey and there is a path nearby called Patriot’s Path which people use to walk and run. It is also through a forest, which gives a nice calm atmosphere to exercising.

2. Undertaken new challenges This will be a challenge for me because I have never worked out so regularly before. Even though when I do exercise it is for a longer period of time (about 2 hours) I do not do it as often as I plan to do this one (every day).

3. Planned and initiated activities I would say I have planned this activity myself because I have not signed up to any class or activity. It was in my hands to look for an appropriate place to carry it out and see up to where the path measures 1 mile.

5. Shown perseverance and commitment in their activities This is probably the most relevant learning outcome for this activity and this is because I plan to carry it out every day of the month. It can be tedious, especially on hot summer days to get into running clothes and go out to exercise but in order to accomplish my personal goal, I must meet this objective.

My personal goal for this activity is to improve my stamina, which will have a direct positive influence on my other “Action” activities. I think of this as a complementary activity to what I already do and to stay in shape while I am away and can’t surf or go to the ballet school. Running is a good core cardio workout as most of your body is at work, especially your legs, which are important for me to strengthen to be able to facilitate my improvement in other sports. To measure my progress, I will time myself each time I run the mile and write it down, so that later I can see if I have improved or not. Perhaps even using ICT to create a graph of my progress could help put these recordings into perspective over time.

DURING THE ACTIVITY:

Week 1: Last week I arrived at New Jersery and I have initiated this CAS activity this week. I have been getting familiar with the trail along Patriot's Path and have measured about half a mile from my starting point to the point I turn around (there are marks of how far there is on each part). Parts of the path are divided by a strip of road by which cars pass so I have to stop every so often to cross the road. This is OK though because, it gives me time to rest while I wait for the road to clear up. I get tired very quickly and find that I have to stop running at times to simply walk, especially on the way back. My timings have been quite stable this week and I was kind of frustrated by that because I was expecting to see a more rapid improvement. It is true however, that I only went running four out of the seven days of the week so I realize that if I want to reach my goals and objectives, I will have to be more committed and continuous in carrying out this activity. I have also become aware that the distance I am covering is slightly above a mile because I don't take into account the distance between my grandmother's house and where the path starts (which is where I start counting the distance) but the difference isn't that large, and as long as I continue to take the same path and turn around at the same point of refererence, there shouldn't be a problem.

Recordings for week 1:

		Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
	13Jul-19Jul	12,06	11,58	11,51		12,01

Week 2: Last week I observed that I had trouble keeping up with my own pace of running. I would start very quickly but could hardly last at all and I ould have to stop after just a short while. Reflecting on this, I thought that it would be better to maintain a slightly slower pace, but for longer, since what I am primarily working on is my stamina. This way, I won't go very fast at the beginning and tire myself out and not be able to continue at my highest potential later on. Also, to regulate my pace and motivate me further, I have listened to music this week while running. I find that, as simple as this change may be, it has really helped me to keep going because maybe, when I am starting to slow down, the pace of the music starts to speed up so this pushes me to keep going forward. In terms of my timings, I started the week pretty much in the same time frame that I was last week (in the 12 minutes) but have achieved to lower this and hope to continue doing so. Again, I missed some days of running this week (this time 2 instead of 3 so that's better) and also hope to improve that in the two weeks I have remaining of my stay here. This was one of the main difficulties I anticipated even before starting the activity and it is resulting to be so.

Recordings for week 2:

		Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
	20Jul-26Jul	12,04	11,23		11,42		11,19	10,54

Week 3: This week, amongst other things, I was determined to tackle my main setback which has been present for me in this activity which has been not being committed to it completely (as I had still not completed and entire week). This week however was better because I was able to go 6 times, and the one day which I didn't, on Wednesday, I spend the entire day at a horse barn with my cousin as she was getting ready for a horse show, and I don't feel so guilty about missing a day because I did work a lot physically at the barn even though it was not running. I did have more continuity this week and I think that this allowed me to concentrate more on my timings and on improving them. As I was listening to music last week, I found tht if I listened to the same music, I sometimes listened to the same songs in the same areas. For example, I heard some on the way there, and others on the way back. After observing this, I came up with the idea of creating a determined playlist to pace myself and see how I was doing with time, instead of having to look at the stopwatch which can be somewhat nervewracking since you feel under pressure. The playlist I created is the image below. What I did was, set myself a new goal each time I went running for example, I will pass such tree before the third verse of "You'll Ask for Me" and try to arrive to the end before "Jenny" ends. I set the last song as one I don't realy like because this would motivate me to go faster and not have to listen to it. If I listened to the last song, this meant I was in trouble because I had taken too long but fortunately, I never had to. This resulted to be extremely useful because I was not concentrating as much on being tired, but on setting goals for myself in terms of music which actually made this workout very fun.

The playlist I created on my phone to use as references of my pace

Recordings for week 3:

		Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
	27Jul-2Aug	10,49	10,26		10,52	10,15	10,01	10,21

Week 4: I am very proud of what I have done this last week. I ran every day and my timings show this committment and what I have done this past month. My lowest recording was just under 9 minutes, which is a huge improvement compared to the 12 something minutes I started the activity with. Not only this, but I was also able to maintain myself within the 9 minute range for several days (it was not just one day which I was lucky or happened to have more energy my chance). This continuity in better timings is proof that I have achieved my personal goal of improving stamina and being able to keep up with a faster pace. I think that the approach I took towards this activity of pacing myself with music proved to be useful and I think that I will be able to apply setting these kinds of "immediate goals" in the future, not only in CAS activities but in tasks in general.

Recordings for week 4:

		Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
	3Aug-9Aug	10,04	9,54	9,29	9,13	8,48	9,04	8,52

AFTER THE ACTIVITY:

Having combined all my recordings for the last four weeks, here is the chart I get. It clearly shows that I have improved in my running time as I have cut my runs by about three minutes from when I started the activity. However, I also created a scatterplot to observe and analyse the tendency of my progress.

		Mon	Tues	Wed	Thurs	Fri	Sat	Sun
Week 1	13Jul-19Jul	12,06	11,58	11,51		12,01
Week 2	20Jul-26Jul	12,04	11,23		11,42		11,19	10,54
Week 3	27Jul-2Aug	10,49	10,26		10,52	10,15	10,01	10,21
Week 4	3Aug-9aug	10,04	9,54	9,29	9,13	8,48	9,04	8,52