...after three days of travelling around New Brunswick with the girlies. I had hoped to get some runs in while away, but it didn't happen. Between long days visiting with old friends, taking the girls on hikes, sight-seeing, and a few too many drinks each night, the runs just didn't happen. Oh well.
I got back on the program today with my 10 K long run. The pace range for my long runs is broad - 5:53 - 6:38 min/km and I'm aiming for the slower end, so I've got the Garmin set to annoy me outside of 6:25 - 6:35. Unfortunately I'm having a hard time holding the speed down to that range and the average speed for the run was 6:22. Not bad, and a little better than last week's 6:17 average pace on my 6 K "long" run. Good news - I'm getting slower!
I am quite happy that I managed to keep my heart rate nice and low at this speed - average of 146 and after the first five minutes or so when it was strangely high (~ 160), it was really quite consistent in the 145-150 range.
I'm really happy the T is running now, too. She managed to get all of her runs in this week and I really think that she's feeling good about it. Her excitement about running is motivating for me, too. I hope she keeps it up.
Toodles.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Monday, August 24, 2009
Dear Diary...
Dear Diary,
I am a complete and utter failure...
Just kidding. What I am is a complete and utter idiot for thinking that I could go from no regular running to running even a pokey half-marathon using a high-intensity program in three months. A natural athlete might be able to pull it off, but not a force-myself-out-the-door type like me. The long and short of the last six months is this: I started training for the Bluenose half-M in the winter, travelled just enough for work to detrack my training a few times, developed a series of nagging Achilles' tendon problems that put me off even more, and went to sea for 45 days on a boat with no treadmill.
And to boot, the chef on the ship was Italian, so weight was, um, gained; let's leave it at that.
I'm back now, have brand new sparkly shoes, have run with reasonable regularity for the past three weeks, and have targetted a (more modest) 10K in October in order to get my (more hefty) rear in gear. To that end, I think it's finally safe to lift my head in running company once again.
I've never actually trained for a 10K before, so it's interesting already. I'm using the Running Room program from John Stanton's book, so there are more runs per week (five days generally), but at a lower intensity than the FIRST training I tried and blew in the spring. Since first starting to run a few years back, running farther was always my intent - speed never mattered, just staying out on the road for what I thought was an increasingly astonishing period of time. To that end, I went from my first 5K to a half marathon inside of eight months and then followed up two years later with a couple more halfs and a full.
Training for a bit of speed will be a fresh change for me and running the shorter training runs will help me get back into the swing of things and get running back into my life. I missed it.
I still want to give the FIRST program a go at some point, because I have a feeling that there is something definitely right about it, but I have to discipline myself much better and build up a better base of running or I'll just go down the same injury/despondance path of the spring.
Toodleedoo for now...
I am a complete and utter failure...
Just kidding. What I am is a complete and utter idiot for thinking that I could go from no regular running to running even a pokey half-marathon using a high-intensity program in three months. A natural athlete might be able to pull it off, but not a force-myself-out-the-door type like me. The long and short of the last six months is this: I started training for the Bluenose half-M in the winter, travelled just enough for work to detrack my training a few times, developed a series of nagging Achilles' tendon problems that put me off even more, and went to sea for 45 days on a boat with no treadmill.
And to boot, the chef on the ship was Italian, so weight was, um, gained; let's leave it at that.
I'm back now, have brand new sparkly shoes, have run with reasonable regularity for the past three weeks, and have targetted a (more modest) 10K in October in order to get my (more hefty) rear in gear. To that end, I think it's finally safe to lift my head in running company once again.
I've never actually trained for a 10K before, so it's interesting already. I'm using the Running Room program from John Stanton's book, so there are more runs per week (five days generally), but at a lower intensity than the FIRST training I tried and blew in the spring. Since first starting to run a few years back, running farther was always my intent - speed never mattered, just staying out on the road for what I thought was an increasingly astonishing period of time. To that end, I went from my first 5K to a half marathon inside of eight months and then followed up two years later with a couple more halfs and a full.
Training for a bit of speed will be a fresh change for me and running the shorter training runs will help me get back into the swing of things and get running back into my life. I missed it.
I still want to give the FIRST program a go at some point, because I have a feeling that there is something definitely right about it, but I have to discipline myself much better and build up a better base of running or I'll just go down the same injury/despondance path of the spring.
Toodleedoo for now...
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