Gym Workout

This morning I rode 5:04 miles in 31:02 minutes on the recumbent bike at the gym. My legs still felt a bit tired, probably from Saturday's hilly long run. I decided not to worry about it and moved on the the weights for some upper body strength training (machine and dumbbell combo). I felt like I had a good upper body workout this morning! I think that if  I can be consistent with the strength training (especially core and upper body), it could really help me with the running.

I'm still mulling over my long run last Saturday, and how hard it was. Part of it was the humidity, heat, and hills, I know, but it was my slowest average pace for the season! I decided to plug my most recent Magic Mile time in on Jeff Galloway's website, and it says I should be training at a 23:35 minute/mile pace for a half marathon! It makes my 20:26 min/mile average pace from Saturday seem pretty good. It makes me wonder if my Magic Mile last week could've been faster. Maybe, but it felt like a pretty hard effort. Well, it could be that I'm still doing a pretty short long run (6 miles this past weekend), and I'll need the cushion of the extra minutes when the longer miles kick in, especially while it's still so hot! But I also hope that my endurance and speed will continue to improve, resulting in a faster Magic Mile.

Meanwhile, I've been tweaking my half marathon training schedule a bit, based on my target race and class schedule for the fall. (I'm starting graduate school part time in August, and will have a class every other Saturday.) I'm actually looking forward to making it work. Weekend long runs will be more challenging on class weekends, but I'm determined to make it work!

Clipart from Clipartheaven.com