October Goals

I thought I'd break up all my updates into categories so they'd be easier to review later- if I ever actually do that- haha. So here are my goals for October:

1. Run a 5k
Conservative goal- Under 25min
Challenging goal- Under 24min

All I have to do to complete my fall 5k goal is run at an 8min/mile pace (24:51 finishing time). A 7:40 min/mile pace would get me under 24 minutes (23:49). I'm not sure that I can run faster than 7:40, but I think that would be a reasonable, challenging goal. My 1/2 marathon time predicts a 23:30 5k time, which is somewhere in the 7:35ish min/mile range. That might be too agressive, but who knows? I think I run a little better in races than in training because I've been up for a little longer- I'm looser and my body temp is a little higher- so that might give me an edge. Plus I'll have about 2 weeks worth of training under my belt by the time I race again.

2. Run a 10k
Conservative goal- Under 51min
Challenging goal 1- Under 50min
Challenging goal 2- Under 49min

McMillan predicts a 48:51 10k time from my 1/2 marathon time, which is about a 7:50 min/mile pace. That may be too fast for me, but again, who knows, and I have additional training time. There are several races I'm interested in during the month of October- I just have to decide which one I want to do for my 10k and which for the 5k. Because the two races I'm mainly interested in are back to back weekends I'm thinking I'll do the 5k first just because the recovery will be easier. Not sure about that.

3. Resume strength training
Conservative goal- Group strength 1x per week
Challenging goal- Group strength 2x per week

I want to get back into strength training but I know that realistically I just don't work out very well on my own. Plus I honestly don't/can't spend the time I would need to achieve the goals I've set to get stronger at particular lifts. I'm primarily a distance athlete and doing an endurance style weight training program is more in line with my goals than a strength style program.

4. Push-ups
Conservative goal- Push-ups 3 days/week
Challenging goal- Push-ups 4 days/week

Despite what I said above, I don't think the push-up goal needs to be scrapped. I want to continue with the ReconRon plan (well, go back to the beginning and start it over).

5. Continue with intuitive eating. Stop trying to fix everything with additional exercise. Find a balance between life and working out. This is the workout plan I have in mind:

U- Rest/swim lesson
M-Spinning
T-1st run workout, group strength
W-Spinning
R-2nd run workout, group strength
F-Swim
S-Long run

I was getting a bit antsy thinking about how spinning and especially swimming burn a lot fewer calories than running, but it seems that the more exercise you do, the harder it becomes to lose "the last 5lbs" so I'm thinking this looks like a good balance. Plus being home most evenings gives me more time to cook, practice piano, work on Christmas ornaments, etc and not be sooooo tired like I am when I do doubles.

Can't think of anything else right now... hopefully I'll do a better job keeping this thing updated.

First FIRST Run

So I've been saying that I'm going to start doing the FIRST training plan, which mixes 3 days of running with 2-3 days of intense cross training. This morning I did my first FIRST workout from the 5k training plan. I'm interested in using FIRST to training for the MadCity Marathon next spring, but because I want to do a few 5/10ks in the next few weeks I thought it made more sense to do the 5/10k workouts (they are basically the same). This morning I did a 2mi warm up, 8x400 with 90sec recover, 1mi cool down. Here are the paces for my 400s. They aren't super consistent, but it's a start. Repeats 1 and 3 were a little on the slow side, but these were supposed to be run at a bit faster than 5k pace (or in my case goal 5k pace because my current 5k time is way slow) so they were in pretty much the right range.

1- 7:42 (min/mi)
2- 7:26
3- 7:41
4- 7:10
5- 7:36
6- 7:25
7- 7:16
8- 7:20

Great 1/2 marathon

1/2 Marathon

I meant to get back on and write about my 1/2 marathon for some time now, but it just kept getting away from me. I was a little worried about how the race would go because I had a little respiratory thing earlier in the week before the race, but after taking some easy days, I felt great. Everything about the race went perfectly. The weather was wonderful, the course was flat, I did a great job with pacing... I couldn't have asked for a better day. I tried to run not fast but "purposefully", and I was able to hang in there the whole way. My lap times were:

1- 8:27
2- 8:26
3- 8:17
4- 8:09
5- 8:17
6- 8:05
7- 7:54
8- 8:16
9- 8:19
10- 8:21
11- 8:19
12- 8:21
13- 8:18

For an official time of 1:48:41 (8:19 min/mile). It's pretty amazing to me that I ran this entire 1/2 marathon as fast as my last 5k. I'd really like to try to qualify for Boston next year. If I can keep making progress like this I think it might be a reasonable goal.

I was pretty wiped out after the race and needed to take a few days off to get my energy level back up. I need to remember that hard, well run races need adequate recovery.

Ready to go

I'm ready to go for my 1/2 marathon next weekend. I hope I'm ready to do a little tapering this week. Most of my runs call for a few fast intervals so maybe that will keep me from feeling too antsy. I know that tapering isn't that important for a shorter race like this, but I want to do the best I can. There's a possibility now that I won't be able to do the race, and that would be dissappointing, but I'm going to keep my hopes up that it will work out.

The plan is to take the week off from weight training and do only one workout per day (no swim/bike doubles). I'm going to check out the tri team's spinning class tomorrow, and if I like it, I'll probably join the club. It will give me a good opportunity to do some different workouts during the winter and hopefully meet some fun people.

I'm excited both about the race and about starting my new tri-style training program after it's over.

Been a long time

It's been a long time! I guess that's what moving and starting a new job will do to you.

Running has been going very well. My "easy" pace has fallen close to 9min/mile, and I have been good (well, up to last week) about doing all my key workouts during the week. I've found that thinking of my 1/2 marathon pace as "purposeful" rather than "comfortably hard" helps me get the right pace. I just can't run hard anything for 13miles.

My 1/2 marathon is coming up in two weeks, and I've set some goals:

Conservative goal- 1:55

Considering I've done my last two long runs at 9:05 pace and it felt very easy, I think this is a most do-able goal.

Moderate goal- 1:50-1:55

Again, based on my training times, I don't think I'll have any problem getting in this range.

Pie-in-the-sky Goal- Close to 1:50

Probably won't happen, but if all the stars aligned and Jupiter was in the 7th house (Who's house?) then it could happen. It would be a very fast race for me, but not absolutely totally out of the realm of possibility.


I've decided after the 1/2 I'm going to try a FIRST-type plan to get me through the winter and maybe to run the Madison Marathon next spring. So rather than running 5 days per week I'd swim/bike/row three days per week and run (but more intensely) the other three days. I'm going to try to do spinning with the tri team here (not super convenient location-wise, but it might be a good way to make friends) and am taking some swimming lessons starting next week to help me get back in shape for that. I swam 2000m last week and it wasn't pretty.