Saturday, February 28, 2009

Heavy Legs

We ran 3.03 miles today and it took us 24 minutes and 50 seconds. Our best pace for 3 miles so far! My legs felt really tired though. I'm concerned because my legs always feel super heavy in the morning and the 15K is at 8:30a.m. I'm thinking I should get to bed early the night before and wake up extra early and do some running or something so that I don't feel like I'm hauling around 2 ton weights during the run.

I took yesterday off which could have also contributed to my heavy legs. They felt that way on Wednesday after not doing much the day before. However, I ran in the morning on Wednesday too. Hmmm...

Average Pace: 8:18 per mile. Still looking for a metronome!
Number of Intervals: 3.03 mile loop around the neighborhood.
End Results: Tired
Aches and Pains: My legs felt very heavy the whole time. Back hurt afterwards.
Breakthroughs: I am NOT a morning runner... that concerns me.
Age of Shoes: 2 years

Thursday, February 26, 2009

Should have been watching Ugly Betty...

but I decided to run instead! :-) Actually, our TV isn't working (shocker) because we live too far away from civilization to get a strong enough signal to our digital antenna converter. Anyway, back to the issue at hand. We ran 4 miles today and it felt AWESOME!! The best part is that it only took 34 minutes and 21 seconds!! Not my best, but I'm happy with my progress.

Average Pace: 8:35 per mile. Still looking for a metronome!
Number of Intervals: 4.12 mile loop around the neighborhood.
End Results: Feel Great!
Aches and Pains: My right thigh was really tired around mile 2-2.5
Breakthroughs: I didn't want to stop running, but it was getting late. :-) I've also noticed, that my blogs have more :-)s than :-(s which is a good thing :-) (there I go again!)
Age of Shoes: 2 years - I'm really going to get new ones this weekend so they can be broken in by the 15K

Wednesday, February 25, 2009

Morning Run

Average Pace: 8:41 per mile. Still looking for a metronome!
Number of Intervals: 3.03 mile loop around the neighborhood.
End Results: Legs felt tired, or maybe I felt tired :-)
Aches and Pains: Stomach cramps afterward.
Breakthroughs: I still hate mornings :-)
Age of Shoes: 11 months

26:06 - not as good as I had hoped. :-(

I'm glad I did it. It wasn't as cold as I thought it would be. Just got to get used to waking up. I guess that's a "life" thing though, not a running thing :-)

Tuesday, February 24, 2009

Milk

Average Pace: Wasn't counting... Still looking for a metronome!
Number of Intervals: 2 loops on the trail (at the track)
End Results: Feel good. Ended to soon!
Aches and Pains: NONE!!!!
Breakthroughs: Had fun with the distance girls... :-)
Age of Shoes: 2 years!

OK, so I didn't run as much as I wanted. Jason wanted to compromise and run at night instead. Any one who knows me knows I am NOT a morning person, so of course I'm going to give in. Well Jason had a glass of milk with dinner and lets just say there was no running tonight. He promises to run tomorrow morning. We shall see.

Monday, February 23, 2009

Evening Run

Average Pace: 8:36 per mile. Still looking for a metronome!
Number of Intervals: 3.03 mile loop around the neighborhood. Rolling hills.
End Results: Feel great about the run.
Aches and Pains: NONE!!!!
Breakthroughs:I felt AWESOME!
Age of Shoes: 9 Months

Jason and I went for a very enjoyable run tonight. We ran 3.03 miles according to the walking route on Google Maps. I felt really good... and strong! It was really nice to feel in shape. My time... that's another story, 25 minutes and 47 seconds. It's OK, after this race, I am training for a half marathon. It's only 4 miles more than what I'm doing on the 14th... how hard can it be? I'm hoping to get into as many 5Ks as possible as part of my training and also bring that time down closer to my PR (19:32). HaHaHaHa!!!! We will see.

I'm pretty excited about the whole thing. I think I should treat myself to a new pair of shoes and possibly a new running outfit... what do you think? :-)

Tomorrow I will do my first "Morning Run" since Kent. You know the kind where you run in the morning to get your body ready for your afternoon run? We are going to run 20 minutes. Then I will run 4 miles with my girls at track practice. Sound fun?? I'll let you know. :-)

Sunday, February 22, 2009

6 Miles

Ran a little over 6 miles today and I didn't have to stop and walk!! (tee hee) Sadly, it took about an hour. (At one point I forgot to turn my watch back on after stopping at a light.) Mile 3 definitely sucked, but by mile 5 I was on auto pilot. It actually felt really good. As it turns out, I'm in better shape than I thought. The best part... no pain! The worse part... my legs felt really heavy.

I'm feeling better about running the 15K. I'm shooting for under 90 minutes.

Well, I'm off to take the dogs on a cool down walk. Happy Sunday!

Saturday, February 21, 2009

I run; therefore, I am... insane!!

So I've just signed up to do the Gates River Run 15K on March 14th. I was originally planning to run the 5K, but was talked into running the 15K. It will be in Jacksonville, FL and the route looks like it will be fun. My motivation - THE BEACH! (If it's warm enough.) If not, we will spend the day shopping which will be equally fun considering there is no place to do an y real shopping in Valdosta, GA.

I'm concerned because I have not run more than 4-5 miles in a day in the past year. I wish I had more time to prepare, but I'm just going to try to have a good time.

As a result of my poor planning and judgment, I have decided to revive my running blog to chart my progress for the next 3 weeks. I figure, if I survive this race, I am half way trained to run a half marathon later in the spring. I will keep you updated though.

I looked on the race website and they had a 15 week training schedule. Basically, I am going to try to run 6 miles tomorrow. Followed by 3-4 miles each day next week and 7 miles on Sunday.

The following week, I will run 3-4 miles 3 days, cross train 2 days, and run 7 miles on March 7th or 8th, and one day of rest.

The week of the race, I'm going to run 3 miles each day until Thursday (2 miles) and rest on Friday.

This is a modified version of what is suggested, I think I need to make up for weeks of not training. We shall see how this goes. Wish me Luck! :-)

Oh yeah, today I did an good old fashion Holy Name 400s workout just to see where I'm at - thinking I was going to be running the 5K. It went well, we planned to do 8x400s, however on #6, Jason was attacked by a dog - it was hilarious! He wasn't injured, but we decided to end the workout a little early.
Here are the stats: (they are not pretty)
1. 89 sec.
2. 96 sec.
3. 89 sec.
4. 91 sec.
5. 91 sec.
6. 2 min (I was laughing too hard!)

Here's the site for the race if you want to check out the course... all 9.44 miles of it!
http://www.gate-riverrun.com/