New Week, New Training Plan

This morning I started a new training plan, Jeff Galloway's half marathon training schedule for a time goal. For now, I'm going to follow it as closely as I can, but I'll keep in mind that I may need to be flexible down the road and scale back a bit. Here's the link. Scroll down to the second plan to see what I'll be working on.

So, I did the 30 minute run on today's schedule outside for a change. I'd gotten into the habit of going to the air conditioned gym and running on the treadmill. Because I run more quickly on the treadmill, that's always a confidence boost. In the big scheme of things, though, running outside is more realistic, and allows me to track my progress on a wider variety of surfaces. Anyway, I ran through the Brier Creek Country Club neighborhood, and had plenty of company, including several dog walkers. (I enjoy seeing people's dogs, as long as they're leashed as I'm running by! Who knows, maybe being chased by a dog might help me with my speed, though!)

Today's workout: 1.51 miles in 30:01 min., 30 sec/30 sec run/walk intervals, sunny and around 75F

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

Thursday Run/Walk

I hit the roads again this morning, going 2.78 miles in 45:04 minutes, using a mostly 1:1 run/walk ratio. A few times I ran for 2 consecutive minutes, to help speed up my average pace per mile. Thankfully, it was a little faster today. :) Afterward, I stretched my IT bands for about 5 minutes.

Race Report: Free to Breathe 5K

I ran the 2nd Annual Free to Breathe 5K in Raleigh this morning. My running life is short enough that there are few races where I can say I've run in all of them, but I can say that about the Free to Breathe 5K. :)

It was a 9:30 AM race start, and I normally do my running (and exercise in general) earlier in the morning. I wasn't grumbling this morning, though, because it was raining early, and I wondered if this would be my first race in the rain.

I got there about 8:15, and the place I parked was actually a pretty good walk from Race Central. After picking up my packet (which was a little disorienting, because I had to go back and ask for safety pins for my race bib, then I had to go back and ask where to get my timing chip--usually they give/tell you all that), I walked all the way back and moved my car a little closer, just before the heaviest rain of the morning started. (I was glad I was still in my car.) Thankfully, the rain lessened and stopped at last, and it became a pretty North Carolina fall morning.

The race course itself was near the start of last weekend's City of Oaks Marathon and Half Marathon. I've been battling fatigue all week from running the half marathon myself, so I was wondering how I'd do this morning. I decided to use it as a training run and not worry too much about the time. I found out just before it started that the course was kinda hilly, which I knew would probably slow me down a bit. I'm thinking a 45-50 minute finish wouldn't be the end of the world.

I decided to start out using the Galloway method, run-walk-run, to see how it would help. I started with a 3-minute run, followed by a 1-minute walk, but some early hills sent me into 1-1. Mile two seemed to be a lot of decline and flat territory, so I ended up running straight for over a mile, then ran/walked some wierd combinations of the last .8 tenths of a mile.

I ended up finishing somewhere around 41:05, still waiting on official and chip times. It's slower than my last few 5Ks, but I knew going into it that I was tired. It's the first time since last Sunday that I've run that long. Here's to a faster trot on the next 5K in a couple of weeks!