Pushing It

Day 14
5 mile tempo run at 9:57/mile pace

Christina called last night because she let her "babysitter" go to a sleepover with the cousins and now was in tight spot. Landon was home, but no one else was and Greg was working. So, we put our heads together and decided I would bring over my stroller.

No where in our discussion was the mention "hey, let's just go later on when the husbands are home from work".

At 6:10 this morning I grumbled that I didn't want to go running, but--with images of poor Landon roused from bed at 6:20 in the morning--I made myself get out of bed and get ready.

I made my way over to Christina's and we loaded up Landon. It was very slow going. Christina was pushing an extra 30ish pounds and my legs felt like lead. About a half mile in, and well below our pace, I suggested that we cut the run to 3 miles instead of 5. Christina wholeheartedly agreed.

It took us awhile to get into a groove but we finally did, though not at a 9:57 pace. We did manage to meet that at certain points during the run (downhill) but we averaged 11:00 miles for the entire 3 miles. Definitely not our best effort, but kudos to us for getting out at all.

After tugging at my shorts the entire run, I've come to the conclusion that I'm going to have to bring out my spandex shorts. I know. They're spandex. And spandex is so...unforgiving. But they don't make my legs chafe and I don't spend the entire run pulling them down. I'm going to have to get over the spandex fear. I just need to figure out what to do with my arms chaffing. I guess, bring out the balm I used for the marathon. That seemed to work wonders.

Tomorrow, we're biking instead of swimming because Wade's working from home and headed out with the scouts tomorrow evening until Friday and I want to see Christina on her new bike. But more importantly, it's been a while since I've been out on my bike and I wouldn't mind taking it for a longer spin.

Glad That's Over

Day 13
Swimming
Mile intervals at a 9:26/mile pace

After taking three days off, it was really hard to get out of bed this morning. I woke up at 5:40, the time I usually leave to pick Christina up. I thought about just going back to sleep and begging forgiveness later, but I must be getting better because instead of turning off the alarm and turning my back to it, I rushed out of bed and grabbed my stuff. I was about 8 minutes late picking up Christina and I was praying she didn't give up on me. Luckily, she hadn't.

Swimming was fairly uneventful. Because we were 15 minutes later than usual, we found some open lanes. We added 5 laps to our routine and finished 20 laps in 24:22. Not too shabby considering neither one of us find swimming to be our strongest area. When we first started swimming it took us nearly a half hour to do 15 laps, so we must be improving.

At 9:00, we met at the track and preceded to do our mile intervals. They sucked! It was hot and four laps is a long ways around. We were able to keep under the 9:26 pace, but just barely.

Christina finished her three intervals in 9:15, 9:10, and 9:21. I finished mine in 9:15, 9:17, and 9:25.

We were both glad to have it done with though we're going to have to start going at an earlier time. It's getting to be too hot.

Tooele Freedom Run 5k Plan

Date
July 4, 2009

Time
8:30 am

Location
777 E Skyline Dr in Tooele

Time Goals
Hillary: 27:00
Sandra and Christina: 30:00

Splits
Hillary:
Mile 1: 8:41
Mile 2: 17:22
Mile 3: 26:04
Mile 3.12: 27:00

Sandra and Christina:
Mile 1: 9:39
Mile 2: 19:18
Mile 3: 28:58
Mile 3.12: 30:00

Notes
The first 2.5 miles of this is all downhill, so definitely take advantage of that because the last half mile is uphill. It's not a steep uphill but it's gradual and it's difficult.

Because of the late start, make sure to eat breakfast beforehand and drink LOTS of water Friday and Saturday morning. One year, there was only one water station on course. Last year, there were two. I think they'll probably keep with the two because it's such a late start and it gets hot.

Good luck and have fun. The parade is a lot of fun afterwards. I'll drive in and hopefully, we'll find someone to ferry us back up to the car.

Going Backwards

Day 11 (Friday, June 26)
Run 8 miles at a 10:42/pace


I carefully packed my running clothes when we went camping and then it rained. And rained. And we were off a dirt (mud) road and it never did dry out enough to run 8 miles on and so I opted out. Besides, I had a bladder infection and wasn't feeling 100%.

I heard Christina did it though, but slower than the pace. Kudos for getting out.

Hillary took Thursday, Friday, and Saturday off in hopes of feeling better. When I talked to her at church, she wasn't feeling much better so she's taking tomorrow off as well.

Day 12 (Saturday, June 27)
Mountain Biking

None of us did this. Which is okay. Saturdays in this particular training plan are just icing on the cake.

Good thing it's early in the training program. We'll still do good. I don't know of anyone who's actually made it all the way through a training program without something getting in the way.

2 weeks down, 8 weeks to go.

Wheeeee

Day 10
Biking

Today, we went mountain biking instead of road biking because Christina feels bad that her bike isn't here yet. Or, at least, that's what I'm insinuating. In any case, it was a lot of fun and a lot less stressful than trying to keep up with a certain pace or having to kick old people out of swimming lanes.

We headed up to Lake Point and had a good time, though we did have to walk a few hills that we weren't in the right gears for. It was a good workout.

It's about 2.5 miles from Christina's house to my house, so now we know for future reference.

Nothing too exciting happened. It was pretty warm and I should've just left my jacket at home, but other than that, pretty ho hum. My favorite part about biking is that when I'm tired I just have to stop pedaling, yet I'm still going somewhere--unlike running or swimming.

Good luck on your eight miler tomorrow. Wish I was going to be here for it. I'm going to attempt to do it while out camping, but it may get cut short or I'll have to do it when I get home on Saturday. We'll see how it all plays out.

I'll update the blog Saturday night.

Early Bird Gets the Worm

Day 9
Swimming

Wade had to leave for work this morning at 6:30, so I picked Christina up at 5:15 to make it to the pool at 5:30. We thought we'd for sure have a lane at that time. Turns out that there is a whole group of people who get there right on time at 5:30, maybe even before, because by the time we got in at 5:33, the lanes were full. And they seemed to know everybody. We felt like imposters.

Since the mean aerobic ladies don't start until 6 am, we just took an outside lane, though I was being constantly glared at by a "bobber"--an old lady bobbing in the deep end. She had plenty of room to scoot over, so I didn't let her intimidate me. Hey, I paid my $2 too!

We did 6 lengths as a warm up and then did 10 sprint laps. We realized that it is a good thing to get our legs warmed up in the current pool because both of our legs were tight.

We hit our eighth lap at 6 am, and all the mean aerobic ladies showed up and glared at us for infringing on their "space". Finally, the lifeguard came over and told us we had to leave the aerobic area. We scooted over to where the old guy with the fins was and took turns doing the last two laps to finish off.

Christina's best time was 58 seconds, by my calculations because I held the watch and she was always ahead of me. I came in at 1:02 for my best time. How do I get faster? I try to paddle faster, but I just wear out faster. It's probably because I have a lot more weight I'm pulling through the water than you two. I'll just keep going I guess and hope I'll make time up on the bike ride, since I have longer legs. :)

I'm guessing that 6 am is the sweet time to be hitting the pool. We get a 10-15 minute warm up in the current pool and then we can take over a lane. If we were to wait until 6:15 to show up, we'd probably lose our spot. Any earlier and we'd be in the current pool longer. They need a bigger pool.

I was eagerly anticipating climbing back into bed when I walked through the door. But lo and behold, there were both kids. Wide awake. Like 3 hours earlier than I expected. Luckily, all three of us fell asleep at 8 am and didn't wake up until 10:30.

Making Waves in the Pool

Gold's gym is not ideal to train in. The laps are short, the pool is small, and during water aerobics their is only one lane. Worse then only having one lane is the part that the 10 water aerobic participants were jumping up and down making waves. At first I thought Oh this feels like swimming in a lake, but after awhile I started to think - I hope I don't get motion sick. (Which I was starting to feel!) I also started to think about High school. At region I was ahead of my time flowing swiftly through the water. (100 fly was my best stroke) I flew through 75 yards incredibly, (When I say incredible, I still was well below the pace of the top High school athletes, so I'm not saying I was incredible...) then turned the corner for the last 25 and ran out of gas. The question I have is how hard do you go so you don't run out of gas? Should I be swimming with only my arms to keep my leg strength? What if that makes me feel too worn out? What if I lay back and then realize I could've done more on the swim. I think that is one benefit to people that have the run as their strength, it is last. If the swim was last I would know what I had left in me. I would know how hard I had to go to catch up. They don't do it last because people would drown. They'd be too tired to swim. Where as running you CAN quit. I also thought about the swim. One word of advice is not to swim the backstroke. Swim either freestyle or breaststroke. You can keep your focus on the finishing point and not waste time getting off track. Last year I made sure to keep my eye on the bouy and then I focused on someone swimming in front of me so I could swim as straight as possible and not waste my energy swimming further out than I needed too. I guess the biggest thing is that I'll learn from this year and then hopefully improve every year after that. I did learn one thing from my mini tri is that I need a road bike! It's no longer a WANT but a NEED!

Mexican Food is a Bad Prerun Dinner

Day 8
4 mile tempo run at 9:57/mile


Last night we went to Casa Del Rey's in Grantsville for Kandiss's and Grace's birthdays. It was decided this morning that Mexican food does not make a good prerun dinner. Neither Christina or I hit our marks this morning.

Christina showed up right on time and we started off. The bonus about having the GPS watch is that I can see how fast/slow we're going. I was ahead of Christina a little bit in the first half mile and so I slowed down to get even with her and then I kept pushing her pace up until we were on target. I don't even think she noticed. :) That first mile we were all over the pace and I was happy to have hit our target pace right on the nose. It's always good not to start the second mile already having to make up time.

The going was pretty rough. Four miles at a 9:57 is a tough run for someone who hasn't run that fast in like two years. And I never did feel as triumphant as I did last week for our three mile tempo run. It felt like a chore the entire run. But we finished. And finished quite spectacularly.

Mile 1: 9:56
Mile 2: 9:42
Mile 3: 10:04 (big hill)
Mile 4: 9:30

I'm proud of us for running the last mile the fastest. And also averaging a 9:48/mile pace. That's awesome. Still looking for that perfect formula where I'll look forward to getting up in the morning and running instead of dreading it. Good thing I'm in charge of the blog. I'm pretty sure I would've given up last Tuesday. :)

Yay for no more running until Friday. Double yay for a training program that has only three days of running.

One day our children will stumble upon this blog and laugh at how cool we thought we were because we were running a sub-10 minute mile. They'll remind us of this when we cross the finish line of the Boston Marathon (8 min miles to qualify).

We'll get there ladies. But right now...Hobblecreek in 2:15.

Legs of Lead

My legs felt very very heavy as if they were stuck in mud. I decided to switch today's workout with tomorrows. In the morning I was still not feeling very well, so I didn't feel up to working out. But because of the pressure of having 100% (Which I'm sure to break in the near future) I decided I would try running. I never felt "Good" if their is ever a good in running but I felt like I was pulling my legs through mud and that they would barely move. The highlight was swollowing a knat and having one fly into my eye lid. I think every run has something interesting happen. I also passed Sandra's "dream house" and decided that it is now my dream house. It has a huge yard that would be great for a huge garden and lots of fruit trees. I would even let Jeremy plant a cherry tree. (They get really really big) The best part is I could wave to Sandra and Christina from the balcony as they ran past in the morning. Just a warning, watch out for the grasshoppers! I did time myself and was under the 9:57 pace, barely. P.S. I signed up today for the 4th of July race.

Round and Round We Go

Day 7
Swimming
4 x 800 at 4:54/2 laps

This morning we woke up and made it to the pool at 6 am. It's getting *a little* easier to get up, but it's still hard. We had to circle the current pool while we waited for a lane to open, but right on time, at 6:15, one opened.

We did four warm up lengths of the pool and then did 15 (30 lengths) laps. Next week, we're increasing to 20. To top off our workout we did a fast lap, coming in (we think) under a minute! Nevermind the record on the wall is something like 25 seconds.

Hillary called at 8:00 to say she was too sick to come to the track for our second workout of the day. Christina and I met at the track at 9:30. The schedule said we had to do 4 x 800's at a 4:54 pace.

The first interval was the hardest, though we did do it the fastest. The track is really hard to run on because it's so boring. Christina finished in 4:15 and I crossed at 4:20. The second interval we slowed it down a little bit. Christina came in at 4:34 and I finished at 4:40. The third interval had Christina clocking in at 4:35 and me at 4:40. We tried to run the last one a little bit faster. Christina tied her best time at 4:15 and I came in at 4:25. All in all, a pretty good effort and we surpassed our target time each time, so we must be doing pretty well.

Hopefully, Hillary starts feeling better soon so she can get back on track, but a few days rest won't hurt her any, I'm sure.

The Incredible, The Very Good, and the Ugly

Day 6
Fill the Ark 5k

I spent a lot of time last night studying the layout of the course and when I finally figured out how to get the elevation changes to show up, I realized that this course was going to be so much worse than I had anticipated. Beginning with a very large hill at the starting point. I think I spent TOO much time thinking about this and should've just gone into it blind.

However, I wanted to be as prepared as I could get, and the damage was already done by the time we got into Hillary's car to begin our trek to the race.

I don't know why I get so nervous since I know I'm not going to win any races or anything, but nerves tied my stomach in knots all night and the entire drive in. We arrived with 20 minutes to spare and there were a lot of people. It started raining and I ended up running with track pants on that acted like saran wrap. Christina grabbed her jacket and ended up having to tie it around her waist about 5 minutes into the run.

The starting line was packed when they blew the whistle to start and Hillary ran up ahead. It was the last time we saw her until the finish line.

Christina and I stayed together pretty well until the second mile. At the first downhill, Christina utilized the hill and was off. I plodded along and somehow got stuck in a group of people who kept running and walking. At the top of the 2nd mile, I crashed psychologically and ended up walking up the hill, with everyone else in my little bubble. It was a little demoralizing because it's been a long time since I've had to walk in a 5k. I was having a hard time catching my breath and hadn't taken a puff of my asthma inhaler before starting off. The relentless hills coupled with the inner berating I was giving myself put me into an asthma attack and I had to slow down to get it under control. The sun came out and the humidity picked up and I was sweating like a little stuffed piggy, so that didn't help matters much.

Christina and Hillary cheered me on at the finish line as I crossed at 33:__. Hillary did AWESOME at 27:40 and Christina did really well at 30:40. This was a very tough course.

Clearly, I need to work on positive thinking skills to train my brain to not give up. And I need to remember my mp3 player so the run doesn't feel so lonely. :( Some races are good and some are bad and I was just having an off day, I guess.

Good job girls. I'll be back in top form for our July 4th run, though won't be as fast as Hillary, that's for sure. Next year. :)

The Run From HECK!

I'm glad to read that Sandra could fit in AWESOME in her run this morning. My run was quite the opposite. Let's see where do I start with the torture! First with Jeremy having to work. No way was I going to run 6 miles on the treadmill! So Jer got home at 12:30. I had a little lunch and then said let's go running. All dressed we started to go outside and I noticed it was 91 degrees! Jeremy would've been happy to back out. But we didn't. It was 91 degrees outside and who knows how much hotter with the heat kicking up from the pavement. We also had both girls in the jogger. (Jer pushed most of the way, and towards the end when he was walking) I don't know how far we ran, we just ran. Jeremy was ready to throw up or pass out. (Due to many things, including this being his first run in a LONG time) Then we decided to take a short cut that didn't turn into a short cut. We finally made it home an hour later. Who knows how far we ran. I don't care at this point. I was just glad to finally go to the pottie (Yes about 5 minutes in I realized I needed to go....) and get a dreamcicle, and stick my head under the bathroom sink to cool down. By the way I asked Jeremy how my form looked and he thought it looked pretty funny! Also he happily pointed out in the beginning that he could walk as fast as I run. But just to let you know I Wasn't the one who was going to throw up!!! (Atleast this time it wasn't me...)

Six Miles. 6:30 am. Uphill Both Ways

Day 5
6 miles at 10:42/mile

I'm not entirely sure what got into my head, but when I thought, "six miles" I immediately thought "oh, to the gas stations and back in Lake Point. That would be perfect." And, so, that's where we were headed.

It was early, and Hillary's husband had to work, so she couldn't join us. I was sitting on the curb, wondering what the chances were that both Christina and Hillary wouldn't show so I could go back to bed, when Christina's van pulled up.

We stumbled down to the church and started off. The first mile seemed to go pretty fast and the run got better from there. The first hill was a humdinger, but we were able to keep on pace for quite a bit of it. Then we started downhill. At about mile 2.5, I remember thinking to myself "wow, this is a pretty good run. I'm not breathing hard. I don't feel like dying. We're pretty much on pace." Then we turned around at 3 miles and I realized I felt so good because it was all downhill from the top of the big hill all the way to the turnaround spot. At one point, I looked at my watch and yelped because we were running at a 12:00 pace, way below our pace, so we had to pick it up. But I felt like I was running at a 10:00 minute pace based on how hard I was breathing.

Christina ran a little bit ahead and I tried to catch up, but just couldn't muster the energy to do so. Then she made it across at the stoplight, but I had to wait. Which made it doubly hard to get going again.

However, the run was AWESOME. We averaged 10:36/mile, finishing in 1:03:38. Mile 1: 10:51. Mile 2: 10:39. Mile 3: 10:33. Mile 4: 10:29 (that was the first mile back from the turnaround where I thought we were running so slow). Mile 5: 10:54. Mile 6: 10:13. There were only two miles that we didn't hit our pace target. And they were both the huge uphill parts.

It was decided that for longer runs, we're going to stick to flatter ground, but that we should still run the Lake Point run on occassion so we get the benefit of the hills.

Tomorrow is the 5k. Good times. Good times.

It Does Make a Difference

Day 4
Road Biking

This was Sandra's first day on her new road bike. She met Christina at her house at 6:30 am. On the way over, Sandra wasn't entirely sure that the problems with the biking portion of the triathlon laid in the bike itself. It still felt like a workout. However, when Christina joined up, it became apparent that a road bike is definitely worth the investment. It was night and day. Poor Christina was pedaling so hard to keep up.

We went over to Erda and rode the triathlon course back for a total of 11 miles from Christina's house and back to Sandra's. It's roughly three miles from Sandra's house to Christina's, so all in all about a 14 mile trek. Not too shabby.

Downhill was awesome on the road bike. Sandra spent a good portion of the downhill ride coasting so she didn't get too far ahead. But, if she would've pedaled, she would've been flying.

There are some minor adjustments that need to be made to the bike, but for the price, there's no complaining on this end.

Good work girls! Only two more days and we will have survived our first week of training. Only 9 more to go. :)

Swimming with Sharks

Day 3
Swimming

Christina and Sandra decided to do another 5:45 am trip to the indoor pool in Tooele.

The lanes were crowded--again--and so we warmed up in the current pool. It was a little awkward walking around with the lady who was facing us the entire way.

At about 6:15, three people left, so the three of us (Christina, Sandra, and our new found friend) rushed to take the lanes. After some shifting around as other people left, Christina and Sandra finally ended up in the same lane.

We did 10 sprints of a full lap. Pretty unexciting. We had a hard time timing ourselves, so there are no times to report. Just that Christina beat Sandra every time, except for the time Christina almost drowned trying to do a flip turn at the wall and couldn't stop laughing. Good thing she didn't start drowning because the lifeguard was asleep in his chair by the side of the pool.

Day 3 down, only 64 more days to go.

Mind over Body

Day 2
3 mile tempo run at 9:57/mile

Christina and Sandra met outside Sandra's house at 6:30 am for their jaunt through the neighborhoods. Last Monday, they run 3 miles at 10:10/mile and today, if they're successful, will mark the first time they've averaged below a 10 minute mile.

We ran behind the U of U clinic and over to the clubhouse, through Delgado, down by the Old Mill Townhomes, through Ivory, down the highway and ended at about Bishop Spilker's house. Mile 1: 9:42 Mile 2: 9:54 and Mile 3: 9:58, averaging 9:51/mile.

The weather was perfect! Not too hot. Not too cold. The pace was a little uncomfortable, but not so much that we didn't feel like we could hold a little bit of a conversation.

Hillary ran on the treadmill and finished in 34:18, averaging 11:26/mile, which is still awesome for the treadmill, since the treadmill SUCKS. New Rule: If you have to do your run on the treadmill, you're allowed a one and a half minute handicap for each mile. So that actually puts Hillary at an adjusted pace of 9:56/mile. See how that works?

All in all, a good run. And the bonus being that we're done for the day and don't have to run again until Friday.

Laps Suck!

Day 1
4 x 400 at 2:15 per lap
Swimming

Results
Today we had a great time at the track--if by great, you mean torturous. It was hot and the track was closed to the public and so we ended up having to run our workout in the parking lot, under the careful watch of the community tennis program. I'm sure we looked great--three grown adult women huffing their way around the parking lot four times. But the point is, we did it.

Sandra
Lap 1: 1:57
Lap 2: 2:03
Lap 3: 2:05
Lap 4: 1:55

Christina
Lap 1: 1:57
Lap 2: 2:03
Lap 3: 2:05
Lap 4: 2:00

Hillary
Lap 1: 1:57
Lap 2: 1:59
Lap 3: 1:53
Lap 4: 1:38

We didn't stay on our target time very well. Maybe I was a little safe when I devised the plan, but looking over what we need to do over the course of the training, I'm just going to keep it like it is. I think we'll do good as long as we don't train so hard we get injured.

Christina and Sandra got up and went swimming this morning at 6 am. The pool was crowded, so they spent the first ten minutes in the current pool. They went around a few times against the current (which is a lot harder than it looks) before a lane opened up in the lap pool. They warmed up for 20 minutes and then did 15 laps (out and back = 1 lap).

Sandra saw Hillary as she was leaving for her swim at Gold's Gym, so hopefully that went well.

So far ladies, we're 100% for our training. :)

Fill the Ark 5k Plan

Date
June 20, 2009

Time
8:00 am

Location
3103 E. Craig Dr in Salt Lake

Time Goal
30:00

Splits
Mile 1: 9:39
Mile 2: 19:19
Mile 3: 28:58
Mile 3.12: 30:00

Notes
Looking at last year's results and also from a (very) limited knowledge of the area, this looks like it's going to be a tough course. But that can be decieving. Try running the 1st mile a bit faster than 9:39 but no so fast that there's no way you can run the next two miles. This way, you'll have some padding so if it does turn out to be a little bit harder, you can slow down and still reach the time goal. Also, try to give everything you have in the race. Don't cross the finish line thinking "I could've gone faster". If I'm around you, I'll try to keep you up to date on how far we've gone with my handy dandy watch if there aren't any mileage signs posted. Lastly, if you don't need the water, skip the station. It will just slow you down. But, if you do need it, get it. Oh, one more thing-HAVE FUN!

Training Schedule for Hobble Creek Half Marathon and Triathlon

Dates
August 15--Stansbury Days Triathlon
August 22--Hobblecreek Half Marathon

Training Plan
We are going to be using the FIRST plan to train for the Half Marathon. This is a 3-day-a-week running plan with two to three days of crosstraining as well. This fits our schedule the best because of the triathlon being the week before.

Mondays we will be doing speed workouts at the track as well as swimming.
Tuesdays we will be doing a tempo run of between 3 and 8 miles at a 9:57/mile pace.
Wednesdays we will be swimming.
Thursdays we will be road biking.
Fridays we will be doing our long runs of between 6 miles and 12 miles at a 10:42/mile pace.
Saturdays we will be doing mountain biking or local 5ks.

Our time goal is 2:15 for the half marathon, but we're hoping to make it in sooner. Our only goal for the triathlon is to not be last, though placing in the age groups would be awesome.

Most of all, we want to be having fun and getting fit. And anything above that is just pure icing on the cake.