3.2miles in 33:55
Motivation was troublesome today. I knew I wouldn’t get a run later in the day because we had planned a trip into the city. I also knew that once I got out there it would be fine but getting myself out the door was the real problem. In the end I landed up posting my woes in the runners group on fitocracy. Soon after there were enough props and a couple of comments (Thanks for the push Zack!) that had me pulling on my gear, grabbing my garmin and sunglasses and heading out the door. It was one of those days where having a community felt really positive and afterwards, I felt great.
Wednesday: 4 miles in 43:52
This was intervals. Programming the garmin is really quite helpful since I find that I have a tendency to fly and die during intervals (given I was once part of a crew whose first rowing prize was for “fly and die” I know I can train this out of me). The pace zone ensures that I am moving faster than I would normally want to over any kind of distance and while the intervals are getting longer (so yesterday was 400m r 200m, 800m r 400m, 1200m r 400m) my pace isn’t plummeting in the same way as the first few interval workouts I did.
This week my schedule starts incorporating another speed workout so Friday is about to be shaken up. I’ve blogged before about how I usually find Friday to be one of my harder to do runs, at least on a mental level so I’m not entirely sure whether introducing some intervals is going to make it easier or harder to get myself out there!
Thursday: 2 miles in 20 minutes
This run was preceded by a 3.5 mile walk with our friend Adam. When I’ve walked with Adam previously I’ve done the run before the walk but it’s too hot these days to do that and I figured that since it is only a 2 miler today it wouldn’t hurt to do it after the walk. It was nice to pick up the pace after the walk; my body is really starting to get used to all this running malarkey!
I made these today when I was struck by the baking urge. The recipe says it makes 8 small cupcakes so I used my medium sized liners. I landed up with 23 (!) but I don’t think that will be a problem since Dan got to them before I even managed to take a picture and has eaten 4 already!
2.5miles in 27:06
I headed out around 11:40 today; not my usual time of day for a run but it wasn’t too hot and I wanted to get it done before Dan came home for lunch so out I went. I was going to do my 3 mile there-and-back along Bruce Road but the crazy rottweiler was out and about and after last Monday’s not-so-fun encounter with dogs I decided I’d turn around early rather than run past his place twice!
Today felt slooooow and at times like I was running in treacle but I’m learning to just get the run done and then look forward to the next one.
I’m already wondering if there’s a few races I can enter between now and my half; now that I feel like I’m making progress races seem rather fun!
2.9 miles in 28:52
This felt both good and bad after yesterday’s run. Good, because running on the flat felt so much easier and bad, because there was some lingering fatigue from those hills yesterday. I also rather missed the trails but my goal run is a city run so I really need to be used to the concrete and asphalt. The weather was a bit changeable today, going from cold and cloudy, to warm and cloudy, to warm and sunny, to hot and sunny, to really cloudy and really windy, to thundering, to sprinkling down on me (as I ran). The storm never broke though and so the run was mainly humid.
Week 5 of training completed.
6.5miles in 1hr 9 min
This was the Lakeland 10k at Vermilion Provincial Park and I’m pretty pleased with my time since the course was the hilliest one I have ever run. It’s also the first manually timed race I’ve run so a slightly different experience; when the starting gun went off everybody just charged down the hill. It’s not a particularly big race so that was okay but I would worry about that kind of start with more people about. The low technology approach continues as it appears the results aren’t posted online but are reported in the local paper.
Here I am, breathing like a rhino as I come through the finish:
3 miles in 30:01
I ran in the morning since it’s predicted to get hot hot hot again today. There was a gentle breeze, some shade and some sun; if only every run could be in weather like this! I made a point of not checking the garmin for pace as I ran. I checked it for distance once to make sure that the new route I had chosen would take me to 3 miles but other than that just relaxed and let it happen.
I’m having a rest day tomorrow instead of Saturday so the next running update will be about the 10k race!
