Week 4: September 21- September 26

We (and I) hit some big milestones this week.

Monday
Track intervals are back!  I decided that I wanted to add intervals to our routine because I think they were instrumental in speeding us up.  So, we spent the morning at the track, being serenaded by the marching band.  It was a little awkward having a bunch of teenagers watch us huff and puff our way around the track, but we managed to get 5 x 400 done.  We were a little late getting started and Christina had to get back early.  But I managed to hit 2:00 exactly for intervals 1, 2 and 4.  Interval 3 I was at 2:04 and interval 5 I kicked it in at 1:56.  We even jogged for two minutes between intervals 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.  Eventually, we're going to do the whole thing without walking.  But we'll get there.

Tuesday
Christina and I just did a 30 minute run around to the clubhouse from my place and over to the townhomes and Ivory.  I dropped my jacket off at the bridge, so we ended up running to there.  It came out to be exactly 3 miles and we did it in 31:42, so about a 10:30 mile.  We were taking it easy.  We did see Hillary coming back with Amy and Emily.

Wednesday
I was a little nervous for our run this morning.  The goal was to hit a 9:30/mile pace for five miles.  Hillary and Coral joined us and we started off at 5:15ish.  I led the group for the first two miles and I felt really good.  It was a pleasant morning.  A little cold, but not too bad.  I had to stop for a little bit to take my jacket off and then I was left in the dark.  There were lights coming off the highway that made it really hard to see and then headlights would render us blind.  I like our route though and I think with headlamps, we'll be okay.  We kicked it the last mile and pulled a sub-nine minute mile.  And then I looked at our pace for the entire run.  My watch said 9:16, but that was taking into account the time I had to walk to get my reflective vest off and my jacket off, so after some number manipulation, it came out to be 9:11/mile!!!  I was SO excited about it.  I've never run that far that fast in my life!

Thursday
Ah.  Blessed rest day

Friday
We met at Christina's and started off.  We were going to head over to Erda Way, down to Liddel St. (one street before the highway), cut back across to Church St and then take Rabbit Lane back to Bates Canyon.  Luckily, Christina found her headlamp, so we had some light because it was dark.  I was fiddling around with my watch at one point, and Christina grabbed my shoulder and pointed.  I had almost stepped on skunk.  We talked about what we would've done if it would've sprayed us--I would've had to walk home and leave my car at Christina's.  Man, I'm glad I was running with someone who was paying attention.  That would've been the start of a very bad morning.

The run to Erda Way was a lot harder than I remember it being during the summer.  It's definitely one we need to do more often.  It's a gradual uphill that just presses on your legs.  We got almost to Liddel road off of Erda and I suggested we walk for a minute.  Then we got to Rabbit Lane, which is not paved.  And it was like off-road running.  In the dark.  So we opted to walk most of that too.  We were running late, so we cut our 6 mile run to 5.30, but we were still able to average 10:40/mile even with all the walking.

Saturday
I had signed up to do a 5k with my brother, but then he couldn't make it, but I had already paid, so I went by myself.  I really wanted to see how much faster I was getting.  The course was two loops around Liberty Park, which is pretty flat.  There are no obvious uphills or downhills.  So, it's as fair as it gets.  Though any effort is yours alone because there's no downhills to help you.

It was a gorgeous morning and we set off.  I kept a pretty fast pace the first mile, passing people left and right and finished the first mile in 8:39.  I slowed down the second mile and finished in 9:15 and brought up the third mile and tenth in 9:35 for a finish time of 27:33!!!  I was so happy.  It was  an 8:53/mile average.  I finally ran a 5k under 28 minutes. 

I didn't like how the race course was two loops because it's hard to run by the finish line and have to keep going around again.  But, overall, it was a good race.  I came home and had to call Christina to brag.  I would've called Hillary too, but she was gone. :(  I like that I have friends I can call and brag about a nearly 28 minute 5k time and they're happy for me.  My Tooele 4th of July 5k was 28:11 and that was with all that downhill at the beginning.  So, I'm confident that I will hit my goal of 25 minutes sometime within the next year.  I would like to get down even faster than that, but 25 minutes would make me happy. 

I'm glad I went, even if I had to go alone.  I forget how much I love running those things.

Treadmill 6 x 400

I didn't come up with a great name for this workout. I thought it would be easy to find when I compare how I am improving. Jer has always thought our treadmill was not correct when you run on it and then it shows the time. Anyways it's hard to compare to what I do outside because outside I'm much faster, except I feel like I'm running faster on the treadmill. Who knows?! Anyways here's my splits

1-2:30
2-2:17
3-2:11
4-2:12
5-2:17
6-2:28

I did run my hardest and wanted to quit. I decided I'm going to post a sign that says, "The only thing stopping you from Boston, is YOU!"

Week 3: September 14-September 19

Another week.  More fun than we can handle.

Monday
It was really...hot...muggy, oppressive, something...this morning.  We ran over to Lakepoint, but we had to keep stopping and jumping into the weeds when people would drive by.  And it was unusually busy this morning, so there was a lot of stopping and jumping into the weeds.  We ran 4 miles and averaged about 10:30, so about the same effort as Friday.  Not too shabby.

Tuesday
Christina and I decided to go out again on Tuesday and maybe do 3 miles.  But it was hard to get going running, so we ended up walking to Rose Springs Elementary (about 1/2 way) and then ran the last half.  Definitely not our best effort, but at least we were out.

We also met together for dinner and finalized our plans to do the St. George Marathon next year.  It's a go!  I'm excited, but I'm scared too.  We've set some lofty goals, but I feel like we can reach them if we don't let winter and the holidays derail us.  Also, I've run a marathon before and I know the amount of work it takes.  And it's hard to convey that the minute you cross that finish line, it's totally worth it and you forget, because when it's right at the crest of training time and you're running 20 milers, you can't possibly imagine anything being worth it.  But it is...even if it's just to cross it off your "life" list.  When nonrunners hear that you ran a marathon, they will think that you're the most amazing person in the world.  It's like constantly being buoyed up.  Even if it's a 5 hour effort.

Wednesday
Today was the run I was dreading all week: 4 miles at a 9:30 pace.  I was nervous because that's nearly a 30 second drop in what I had been running the tempo miles at this summer and I wasn't sure I was up for the task.  We mapped out a new route that didn't take us to Bates Canyon Rd, because it was so crowded with the high school crowd.  Instead we wound around all of SP; I was surprised that it was a nice neat number of 4 miles from Christina's all the way around to the clubhouse and back to her house.

I was even more impressed when we averaged 9:22/mile.  We even clocked a sub-9 minute mile the last mile. :)  That made me feel GREAT!  I can't believe how far I've come in the last four months.

Thursday
Our day off

Friday
Hillary joined us for our long run this week.  She picked me up and looked more than a little bleary-eyed.  I'm not sure how she keeps up.  She's amazing. :)




We cut our lofty 7 miles down to 5 miles since neither Hillary or I felt like we could manage the whole thing.  Hillary didn't get a lot of sleep and I had such an emotional draining day on Thursday (with the speech contest and then I didn't eat--a pbj sandwich--until nearly 10:30).  Christina was kind enough to indulge us our shortcomings.

We ran the same route as Wednesday and then tacked on an extra mile at the end.  I led the pack down the frontage road, and then it was Hillary the Rabbit and Christina the Machina leading me down Village Blvd.  I looked at my watch at some point and saw I was clocking a 9:15 pace, so Hillary and Christina were at about a 9 minute pace.  I figured we'd hit a 10:15 pace overall, about what I wanted to do for our "long" run.

When I checked my watch at the end of the run, I saw that we averaged 9:57/mile!  We did a "long" run, averaging sub-10 minute miles.  Man, that felt GREAT!

Saturday
Christina and I decided to bike up to Home Depot again this morning.  It's a tough(?) climb up to the light by Home Depot.  Unfortunately, I was such a slug that I wasn't ready to go on time and Christina had to be back by 7:30, so we didn't make it all the way there.  But we got almost there.  We turned back and rode really fast down to Christina's house.  I continued on home.  It was about 10 miles roundtrip, so not too bad. 

This next week, we're adding back in our track intervals on Monday.  I think they helped us best with speed, along with the tempo runs.

Pictures at Last

Of course I didn't post the pictures Hunter took of me in my swim suit. (Like it makes any difference thanks to the photographer who posted a backside picture of me!) Well next year it will be Sandra with the medal around her neck. Unless of course I take the easy way out and do a team!

Thursday Run With Coral

Today was the first day that I ran with Coral, Amy, and Sharayne. It was nice to have Coral there so I had someone to talk too. Those early morning TORTURE runs can be pretty miserable to do all by yourself. I think I could've kept up okay. I was running to the throw up point. I was running my hardest and definately a race pace! Please pray for me Tuesday and Thursday mornings!

P.S. I'm not looking forward to a long run tomorrow. I hope Sandra can cheer me up by making me laugh and I always cheer up when Christina finds money on the road!

Treadmill 30 minute run #1

I decided that I'm going to record my half an hour treadmill run so I can see if I'm improving. For some reason running on the treadmill is a lot harder for me than running outside. I only had half an hour so I wanted to see how far I could run.

Half an hour=2.75 miles.

Monday Swim

Today I went to Gold's to swim. It's probley one of the worst pools to have to train in. They only have 3 lap lanes. Water aerobics shows up at 10:00 a.m. So they only leave one lane open. There were 3 ladies and we had to circle swim. I did skips today as best I could. (Since I didn't have a kick board I had to kick on my back.) I think I'm going to time a swim every monday to see how I'm improving or not improving.

Week Two: September 7-September 12

We didn't do as well this week.  Those Monday holidays really throw us off.

Monday
Christina went to Lagoon with her family and I stayed up with Wade until 6 am (!) working on the basement.  I should've just gone outside and ran and then gone to bed, but the thought didn't occur to me until after I climbed into bed.  We had to get up at 8 am anyways, so it's probably a good thing I didn't go.

Tuesday
Christina called last night and cancelled our bike ride for the morning, which was a blessing.  I didn't want to go spinning, but I packed my clothes to my mom's house anyways.  Then I forced myself to change and head to the gym on my way home.  I'm glad I went.  It was a good workout.

Wednesday
Finally, Christina and I met up.  Our goal was to do 3 miles in under 9:30/mile.  My watch wasn't charged, so we only had the finish time of 28:30 to aim for.  The run itself was pretty uneventful.  It felt like we were really pushing it.  Just before we turned into Ponderosa, Christina's phone went off.  One of her kids was calling.  She stopped and walked to answer the phone.  I kept running.  We usually run to the street behind and then walk back to Christina's but instead we just ran into the cul-de-sac by her house.  28:08!!!  That's a 9:22/mile average.  YAY!

Thursday
We were going to attempt our bike ride again, but Christina called at 6 am to say she was too lazy to go.  Sounded good to me, so I climbed back into bed.  Neither one of us did go back to sleep.  We should've just gone out.  We decided that Thursdays we're going to take off for a while and that it's too dark to bike in the mornings anymore. :(

Friday
The three of us met each other outside at 6 am and headed over to Lake Point.  We kept it short because of the race on Saturday, but it was still a good run.  Hillary told us about her trip to Hawaii.  I resented my 10 pm dinner.  Thursday nights are always really busy for me and I don't get around to eating until really late.  Then I usually pay for it on Friday's run.  We did 4 miles, averaging 10:28/mile.  Not too bad considering we did the same run in February at an 11:17 pace. 

Saturday
Christina and I were both doing the Utah Marathon Relay with different teams.  I had the last spot on the team and she had the fourth spot on her team.  The race was a lot of fun, though it was SO hot by the time we got around to running.  I thought I was going to die.  I'm not use to running in the heat like that anymore.  The course was good though and it's a race I wouldn't mind doing again.

First Week Back

There were some highs and lows to our first week back after the half.

MONDAY

Christina and I did just our normal 3 mile run over to Rose Springs. It was pretty good. Not great. I thought we were flying, and we finished in 28:53, so I guess we're getting faster. Later on, in the evening, I did a very wussy resistance workout. Going to have to change that up.

TUESDAY

Christina called Monday night to say she couldn't swim today and I had every intention of going, but I have little self motivation, and so I didn't. Instead, I hit the gym after my mom's house and was going to take the spinning class. Of course, the teacher didn't show, so I just did the recumbant bike for 30 minutes. It was a pretty good workout. Christina hit the treadmill, so we both got at least some workout.

WEDNESDAY

We were trying to hit a goal of 9:20 for our tempo run this morning of 3 miles, but it wasn't going to happen. We ran the Rose Springs again and we did slightly better than Monday, finishing at 28:41 and averaging 9:33/mile. I guess not that bad considering just 3 months ago, we were huffing a 9:57/mile tempo run. Yay for us!

THURSDAY

We took the day off. We don't want to overdo it too much. :)

FRIDAY

We ran to the gas stations--almost. At 2.75 miles, Christina's stomach went beserk and we turned around. We ended up walking until we got to the Lake Point church and remembered the park behind and a porta potty which may have saved Christina from public humilation. That was mile 3.88. We ran the rest of the way home, which turned out to be really hard after walking for so long. My stomach was giving me fits too. We made it six miles in 1:10:09, averaging 11:41/mile. Not bad considering our plight.

SATURDAY

We biked to Home Depot. It was the hardest hill for whatever reason. Probably had something to do with the three hours of sleep I got thanks to the basement. Can't wait for that stupid thing to be done. My legs were really sore all day, but the ride back from Home Depot made it all worth it.