Running week of September 27-October 3

[Jolt]

I've been running but not posting lately. Tonight I did a 5k run that starts every Monday night at 6:30 from a local Irish pub and goes through town; the local running club puts it on. It's more of a fun run than a race; we time ourselves and write it in the book. I did it last week for the first time and plan to try and do it regularly, and see if I can keep improving. My time tonight was 24:50 even though I had a few (very short) walking breaks b/c I just felt like I needed to catch my breath. Not a bad time at all, especially for me!! Actually, it's the fastest 5k I have ever done; last week was 25:37 (I did get held up crossing a couple of roads that time, so that's part of why tonight was better). It's basically a flat course so is fast as long as traffic cooperates. Then after the run there's potluck food at the pub and you can get a drink if you want, and hang out for a while. It's a nice change from my usual runs.

[yellow]

After Imogene, I kind of slacked for 2 weeks between starting back up at Crossfit and travel. I decided today during my Pathetic-with-a-capital-P run that I need to identify some sort of a running goal in the next couple of months, probably an event...or just quit completely. I have some longer term goals, so I need to figure out some short term ones that would compliment the long term...or become a couch potato. Must contemplate.

In the meantime, starting back up at Crossfit has been hard on my running even though the Crossfit workouts haven't felt that hard (I've been seriously scaling since I'm not allowed heavy axial loading). Hopefully I'll get back into the groove here over the next month or so and feel mo' better. Also need to get back to more regular core maintenance. Not enough freakin' time in the day.

[skhill]

Jolt, that club run sounds like a blast!

Last week's cold has turned out to be a bit of a blessing-- I ran so much less than usual because I felt so crappy, and I think I needed the rest. Today ended up being 8 miles, after a detour for a leaking natural gas line. They'd been looking for the leak for about 10 hrs when I came through the area, and still hadn't found it. But it's right by an intersection on a busy arterial, surrounded by a busy gas station and a couple car mechanics. Haven't heard anything explode yet, so far so good....

[OakLeaf]

Mile repeats for me.

What a difference 30°F makes! Last time I did mile repeats I was gasping for breath, and couldn't keep my heart rate down in the intervals unless I walked the whole half-mile. Now, granted today I was doing them at a slightly easier pace (like, 0:10 mm slower), but I only had to walk about two minutes of each interval before my HR dropped and I could do a slow jog.

Last time I did three repeats and thought I might do four the next time. I never did program a fourth one into my watch, but when I got to the end of the third repeat I definitely had another one in me. I went back and forth in my head and just went for it. Of course the one thing I didn't have my watch set to display was lap distance, and I didn't get a good look at the total distance at the start of the lap, so I had to go by time and my recollection of where on the track I started my last repeat. Wound up doing 1.07.

Anyway I feel sooooooooo much more confident about race pace now!

[limewave]

I have a mountain bike race on Saturday. So I'm doing a couple of easy runs. A 2-miler and a 3-miler.

[GLC1968]

I started a new base-building plan last night. The goal for the first many weeks is consistent running. This week it is 3 mile easy pace runs, every other day. That'll be three runs this week, and four the next. Last night was 3 mile run number 1. I mapped out a bunch of options from my work and chose a route I'd never really run before. When I got to 3.1 miles, I walked the remaining 0.25 mile back to the parking lot as my 'cool down'. All good. I wore my Terra Plana's because my VFF's gave me a blister the last time I wore them.

Funny thing about today. Today I am a bit achey in my lower body even though I only did 3 miles at an easy pace. Last Thursday I did 4 miles at a faster pace and had no aches at all. The difference? Last Thursday I showered and then put on my Zoot compression RX recovery tights and wore them for 3 hours. I didn't bother this time. What a difference!