Faster Stronger

The first official run of round 2 of marathon training was one of the three key run workouts my new plan calls for: intervals.

Today’s workout call for 10 minute warm up (I did 5), 6 x 1m hard, 3m easy, 10 minute cool down (I did about 8).

My neighborhood makes it a little tough to actually do speed intervals because its really hilly, but I tried (plus pushing speed up even a little on an incline definitely qualifies as hard), you can see the up/down in speed here: 

Did I mention I really enjoy the MapMyRun app?  It’s so much easier.

And I had it alert me to the time every minute, so I could easily tell when each interval was done.

WHAT THE EFF?  Halfway through my 4-miler some guys tried to get me with an egg!  But the jerks missed and succeeded only in pissing me off (and freaking me out a little).  

Thanks to their “motivational” efforts, I busted out 4.08 miles in 45:33, for a pace of 11:09/mile.  Which is my fastest yet!  And considering this 1.4-ish mile climb:

I’m impressed with myself.  I’ve been running in my neighborhood for a month now and I definitely see an improvement.  It used to take me forever (and multiple walking breaks) to get through this.  Now I only need to stop for cars and lights. 

Started out strong for the first day of November. 

Until the marathon. 

If that doesn’t motivate me to get (and stay) on track with training and to lay off the Halloween candy, I don’t know what will.

Speaking of 11 Miles - that was supposed to be yesterday’s long run.  In real life it was 9.6 because at the 8 mile mark my stomach and I stopped being friends.

I have been a super-good marathon trainer this week.  So far I’ve logged all of my scheduled workouts. 

• Four (excellent) miles around town on Tuesday

• Weight workout, that felt too short and not enough, but left me very sore, on Wednesday

• Volleyball (not technically part of training, but exercise nonetheless) and 5 misty, late night (well…9 PM) miles around Central Park with Jennelle yesterday.  I got home very late and slept a little too long this morning, but it was worth it.

• Today?  More weights and maybe some yoga.  I really need to work on my core. My back has been killing me during runs lately, and I think weak ab and back muscles are the cause.

Food has also been going pretty well.  I’ve been tracking calories (again, again, again) and trying to make good choices.  We’ll see how I fare this weekend.

My stomach has been feeling a lot better lately.  So I think healthy eating and avoiding fatty foods did the trick. 

Inexplicably, I’ve gained weight since healthy eating started, but I woke up this morning feeling skinnier than I have in a while.  Need to hold onto that feeling.

In other news, Sunday marks 12 weeks ‘til Disney!  Which is much scarier when you realize it’s only 3 months!  Trying not to freak out…

A quick update:

Ran 4.85 miles with Jennelle around the new house yesterday.  Don’t really know the time.  Thus don’t know my pace.  I was going strong for a while, but then ran into gastro-intestinal issues (…again…really need to edit my food stuffs).

After running, lugged heavy boxes from my living room to my basement and painted a bedroom.  I’M A NEW HOUSE MOVING MACHINE.

So therefore, I’m tired and sore today.

And there’s more painting and box moving to be done.

But!  One week ‘til the move!  Hooray!  I cannot wait.  Although, admittedly, the apartment has been better lately.  That may be because we’re barely there.  Or because we know we’re leaving so we’re letting go of the issues…probably the first one.

Oh, and I joined the work volleyball team.  I’m super pumped.  I played in high school and loved it, although I was never very good.  And, up until last summer, I played beach volleyball with friends every Sunday.  But then I got rid of my car and had no way of getting to the beach.

I’ve always wished that jobs were more like schools and had a wider variety of extra-curricular activities.  Sure, most places have a softball team, but softball brings back bad memories of Junior High, where I joined the team and they tried to get me to wear shiny, red, too small baseball pants.  *shudders*

So anyway, I’m excited about volleyball.  I do need to be less antisocial and actually talk to my teammates.  And interact. 

Half an hour between me and a week of: no work, cleaning, painting, packing, and moving.  All culminating with a half marathon next Saturday (Grete’s Gallop - anyone else running??) and death/14 hours of sleep (in our new house!) on Sunday, which will be glorious.

I think this qualifies as an ultra marathon of life.

Also know as a half marathon training day..err 22?

My Planet Fitness membership is gone forever.  Good riddance to PF with their mostly broken treadmills and questionable clientele (seriously, last time I was there, there were cops walking around looking for someone).  And thus I had to run today’s 4 miles outside.  Alone for the first time (outside of a race) in an extremely long time—I’m thinking high school, circa 2003—I went running outside sola.  

And it wasn’t (too) bad!  I mapped out a 4-ish mile route in Central Park and went from work.  I did forget a hair tie, so my hair was blowing in the breeze. It was quite glamourous for 20 seconds and annoying the rest of the time.  And I wore a long sleeved shirt, which was a little unnecessary and made me pretty hot. 

But I did 4.37 miles!  In like 50 minutes maybe?  I didn’t really look at the time when I started.  

Now to watch Biggest Loser!  Which seems to get cheesier and cheesier every season.  Still love it a little.  Curious to see if Anna Kournikova is actually qualified to do this. 

Right??

Friends this was terrible.  I was worrying about Eric the whole time (pre-run I got several barely legible, disconcerting texts whose general gist was “i’m drunk. i am soo drunk.” Knowing he drove wherever it is he is drunk is the troubling part) and around mile 2 I got heartburn (what in my eggs and toast dinner caused that I’m not sure), which I tried to power through, but by mile 5 I was pretty much done.  In all honesty I could have (physically) pulled out another mile, but mentally I was dragged down by how slow I was going (12:10 pace, ugh!) and how worried/angry I was at Eric.

Thankfully I’m too nauseous to eat my emotions!

6 Miles/1:13:00/12:10 pace.

Tuesday I was supposed to do 3 miles, but I walked home from the train in the pouring rain without an umbrella (genius that I am, I looked at the weather got distracted by how gloriously cool it was going to be and forgot my umbrella).  So I felt all cold and indignant by the time I made it home.  And I made a silent agreement with myself that I would not go out in that again (that night).

So, in my effort to not make excuses and not skip workouts, I made it up yesterday. And I did strength work!  In the morning!  Here ‘tis:

• Squats: 2 sets of 15 reps
• Some sort of arm/shoulder/back move that I forget the name of: 2 sets of 15
• Push-ups: 2 sets of 12 reps
• Planks: 2 x 30 seconds
• “Curtsy” Lunges: 1 set of 15 (ran out of time for the second set)

Then, in the evening, I ran my 3 miles from Tuesday in 34 minutes (11:20 pace, not too shabby).  And for the first time in a while I ran them all with no little breaks for walking.

3 Miles in 34:15 (11:24 pace).  Not too shabby considering how little I’ve been running lately.  And I say this EVERY. TIME. I take a short break from running, but it feels SO GREAT to be back at it. I always forget how much better I feel, mentally and physically, when I’m running regularly.

I admit that when I got home from work there was a solid hour of not wanting to go and run.  But I did it.  On the treadmill (naturally, need to take advantage of Planet Fitness while I have it). 

Tomorrow = 3 miles in the new ‘hood with Jennelle, followed by an upper body workout consisting of: removing wallpaper and wallpaper glue and scrubbing the hell out of every scrub-able surface of the new house!

Also!  P.S. In precisely 4 weeks the official moving process will commence. CAN. NOT. WAIT.

My mileage for the past few weeks has been spotty.  Three miles last week, none the week before, five miles the week before that.  Yuck.  With the half marathon four weeks from Saturday, I really, really, really need to get to moving. 

So here’s my super-condensed train for a half in a month plan. 

No excuses (oh I’m moving, oh i’m tired, womp womp womp) allowed.  The aim is for most of these to be outdoors, since that’s a better, more accurate workout.  Also my gym membership is done on 9/16, so I won’t even have that option.

So reading my marathon book lately.  And he (Tom Holland) really stresses the importance of strength training to protect your body from injury. And so I’m not going to slack on it like I did last time around.  Ergo, strength session:

• Push Ups - 3 sets of as many as I could (10, 8, 10) on my knees. 
• Dumbbell Rows - 5 lb weights, 2 sets of 12 on each arm
• Squats - 2 sets of 15 (with 5 lb weights)
• Stationary lunges - 2 sets of 10 on each leg
• 40 Crunches
• Oblique Crunches - 2 sets of 15 on each side
• Plank - 40 seconds
• Supermans - 2 sets of 10

Followed by non-cookieish Trader Joe’s Fruit Floes (what’s a Floe?) 

NOW - reading more and watching Hannah Montana!

It took me forever to understand what a “tempo” run is.  I swear I looked it up like 39 times before finally I wrote it down on my white board at which point it stuck.  (Seriously - I have gotten 100’s on tests in college by rewriting my notes or copying word-for-word from the textbooks, it’s the only way I remember anything).

So today I attempted my first ever tempo run.  Basically (for those like me who had/have no clue what this is) you start out with 10-15 minutes easy running, building 15-20 minutes of hard running, then end with 5-10 minutes of easy running.  The build-up should be gradual, and you should speed up about 2/3rds of the way through your run.  Mine looked like this:

• Minutes 0-10: 5.1 mph
• 10-18: 5.6 mph
• 18-20: 5.7 mph
• 20-22: 5.8 mph 
• 22-23: 5.9 mph

And then I slowly lowered my pace to end at 30:00 with a total distance of 2.75 (average pace of 10:54/mile).  It was tough to make myself decrease speed at the end.  I usually like to speed up until the 30 minute mark and then slow down, but Hal Higdon isn’t famous for nothin’.  AmIright?

Calories burned (including warm-up, cool down, and walk to/from the gym): 626.

Average Heart Rate: 147 

Didn’t manage to get any workout in yesterday.  Eric and I went to the outlets with his brother and his bro’s gf and, aside from walking around a bit, the only thing that got exercise was my credit card.  I did pick up some good stuff, including a new high impact sports bra from Reebok and some sweet t-shirts from Nike.  Then we had a bunch of people over for a poker night, which was a ton of fun.  But, alas, no time for a workout.  I’ll have to make it up (and soon!) with my first two-fer.  I’ll have to think about what I want to do…

But today!  I rocked it at the gym and busted out 8 miles in 89:30, a pace of 11:11/mile.  Admittedly I stopped for a potty break at mile 6, but that was my total running time.  According to MyFitnessPal (and the machine) I burned about 1400 calories!

Now I am sore.  Off to stretch and lay and eat things.

So I’m finally one of the cool kids…my friend and I have decided to run a Turkey Trot (which really is a rather dumb name, if you ask me), in her hometown the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

My main goal for this race is to be faster!  In the past my mindset going into races has always been “Try to run it all” or in the case of the half-marathon it was “Try not to die.” But now I want to be faster.  I don’t remember my last 5K time…I think it was somewhere around 38 minutes.  This time I’d love to be under 35 (or ideally, under 30, but let’s not get ahead of ourselves), so I’ve started some hardcore training concentrating on speed.

Yesterday’s workout only called for 2-4 easy miles, which I only did 2.65, but I also did 30 minutes of elliptical, so I think that evens out. 

Oh and I have a Daily Mile account, which I have updated twice, but plan to use more often now that I remembered I have it.  So check me out and friend (? if that’s what you do) me here.  BTW that profile pic NEEDS to change…wow my face was puffy.