Bring on the challenge!

You gotta love Utah weather.  Did my 10 miles this morning in rain and snow.  It is May 1st, right?  Sometimes I hate living here. . .

Did my 10 in 1:34.  Not too fast this morning.  Kind of tired.  Went to bed early, but woke up shortly after midnight to get registered for Hobble Creek (yeah!!!!).  Glad I did, too, as it filled up by 10 a.m.!!!  That's where I'm planning on killing it this year!  My PR was from there last year, so I only expect great things from that race!

Overall, good run.  The knee is still bothering me somewhat.  Gotta figure out what to do about that.

Sprint workout on the treadmill this morning.  Haven't done it for 3 weeks.  Need to start upping it.

Took the day off today.  I have a sore foot.  Don't know what that's all about.  I was on my feet a lot the last few days and now it hurts.  Hope it gets better.

Well, 13.79 is what Map My Run says I did.  Not sure if I believe it's accuracy sometimes.  I think it was more like 13.5, but close enough.  Went with hubby again.  Took us just over 2 hours.  Pretty tired when I got back, but glad I did it.  When I go with him and we go for longer than 10 miles, I have to run his style (well, okay, I don't HAVE to, but I want to run with him, so I do).  Where I will just flat out run the 13 miles, hardly stopping, he prefers to walk every 2 miles for a minute.  He swears it does him good.  While I don't doubt him, I have a hard time doing that, especially the first 6 miles.  I don't want to stop, I want to keep going!!  But, I do need to take a leaf out of his book as I'm running the St George marathon later this year and I know my running style is going to have to change for that.  I won't be able to race the half marathon distance, since I'll have to go twice that far.  

Foot still slightly sore, but fine while running.  Thinking about getting a second pair of running shoes.  I wore my new ones on the long run today (yes, they are FINALLY feeling broken in) but they were feeling a bit non-cushiony and my feet were feeling pretty pounded by the end.  That never happened in my old shoes.  Think I'll have to go online and find another pair.

Did my sprint workout on the treadmill today.  

Okay, I just have to ask, does anyone else have friends they run with that are so competitive they just make you so mad?  Not that competition is a bad thing.  I thrive on it, believe me!  But, this is a girl I've trained with for several years and 2 years ago beat me at the Hobble Creek 1/2 marathon by 3 minutes, coming around the corner and yelling to my family "I beat her!!" (They've never liked her since :) lol) Last year I kicked her trash - beat her by an entire mile in Logan and beat her PR by 3 minutes.  This year she is determined to have the same goal as me (which just means I have to up my own goal :) ).  

 So, back to my treadmill workout.  I told her about this workout and she decided to try it last week.  Of course, what I was doing, she had to do better.  Which just made me realize I've got to up mine more.  I did my 5 minute warm up, then 1 min. at 9.0, 1 min at 6.0, then alternated 9.0, 6.0 every 30 seconds for the next 15 minutes.  At 20 minutes, I did 8.0, 6.0, 30 second intervals for 5 minutes, then 8.0 for 2 minutes straight, 1 minute 6.0, and 8.0 for another 2 minutes straight.  I've decided the 8.0 pace is difficult to keep up with for a long amount of time, but I'm determined to keep working at it.  Felt AWESOME when I was done (that workout makes me sweat like a pig!). 

Anyway, I welcome any advice on getting faster.  I obviously can't let this "friend" beat me or I'll never hear the end of it :)

It's time to start upping the workouts.  

 Ran 1 mile at 10 min/mile pace to warm up (on the treadmill at 6:30 in the morning, this seems fast, even though I never run that slow outside)

Ran the next 2 miles at an 8 min/mile pace.  Could tell it was more of a workout, but felt fine. 

Finished off the rest of the 30 minutes back at the 10 min/mile pace to cool down. 

 I am running a 5K in another week.  My goal is to do in the 24 min range.  My other goal is to beat my so called "friend" (if you don't understand this, read my post from 2 days ago :) ) She asked me last night if I'd ever run a 7 minute mile.  I told her I had not (I should have said, Yeah, in high school!!).  She was going to try it this morning for kicks and giggles, just to see if she could because, after all, we have a race in 11 days!  And, that's when I knew it was time to get serious.  This could be an interesting race next week. . . :)

Ran 10 min/mile for 5 minutes to warm up.  Then ran next 3 miles at 8 min/mile pace.  Felt great! I need to do this more often!  Hope I can do this speed for the 5K next weekend!

Kind of a frustrating run this morning.  Last night I mapped out a 15 miler (with some GREAT hills!) and was excited to try it this morning.  Went with hubby and just after mile 5 he needed a potty BAD!  (It is rare that this happens with him, in fact, I think only the second time, but it brought back so many memories of a certain "friend" I would run with and it was inevitable that she would need a potty on EVERY long run!) So, I got a little frustrated.  We were by his office building (unfortunately, the only place we could think of with a bathroom) so made it there and I probably spent 10 minutes waiting.  He felt much better after and I was chomping at the bit. :) So, we bagged our original 15 mile route (mainly because of the time) and opted for the usual route, hoping we could make up some miles somewhere in between.  At about mile 12 we split up, me thinking I was only getting 13-14 miles, he wanting to do closer to the 15 we had originally planned.  I made it home and "mapped my run", and lo and behold, discovered I had, in fact, done 15!  I'm glad!  That made me feel a little better since I was feeling like I got short changed this morning.  He ended up doing closer to 16 1/2 miles.  

Anyway, I want to tackle that other route again sometime.  I need to work on those hills. . . :)

Sprint workout on treadmill.  Warm up at 10 min/mile pace for 5 min.  Then alternate 6.0/9.0 in 30 minute increments for the next 15 minutes.  Then 8.0/6.0 for 5 minutes.  Then 9.0 & 8.0/6.0 for the last 5 minutes.  On the last 30 second interval I did a 10.0 - WOW!  Thought I was going to fall off the treadmill at first! lol - Then, got my feet under me and it wasn't so bad.

Good workout.

Warm up for 5 minutes at 6.0.  Then ran the next mile at an 8 min/mile pace.  Wanted to go farther, but just too tired today.  Then ran the next 2 miles at 6.0 pace.  Maybe I should do sprints and interval training two days in a row??? ya think??

AWESOME race!!  I haven't done a 5K that fast since high school (many, many years ago. . .)!!!  I had 2 goals today - I wanted to get in 24 minutes, and I wanted to beat a certain friend of mine.  Goals accomplished!!  I think the results showed my time as an average 7:50 min/ mile?  I could be wrong, but wow, I pushed it!  My first 2 miles were 7:40's and 7:50's.  Forgot to push stop on my watch as I crossed the finish line, guess catching my breath was more important at the moment :) This is a great course.  There are some uphills and downhills, but thankfully, the last half mile is all downhill.  Unfortunately, I got one of those KILLER side aches at this point - you know, the one's that literally take your breath away?  I had to slow down just slightly, but I refused to slow down too much, my goal was in sight!  Got passed by 2 younger girls toward the end, and sped up to keep up with them, but they still took me at the end.

The other best part??  I placed 3rd in my age division!  Which, considering it's 30-39, it's quite the big division, and I was quite pleased!  But, it got better!  The two girls ahead of me in my division placed in the top 3 females overall, so when they did the age division awards, the race directors had decided if you placed overall, you weren't going to also get the prize for the age group.  Which meant, I got bumped to 1st place in our age group!!  I've never been in a race when they've done that before, but thought it was quite cool!!  It's been a long time since I've won something at a race before!

The only downside of today was that this is the first weekend in probably 9 months that I haven't done 10+ miles.  So, I'm sort of feeling guilty about that.  But, maybe that's okay - I know I don't have a problem running the longer distances.  Maybe my body will appreciate me backing off a bit for one week??? 

Did sprint workout on the treadmill.  Same as last Monday, although I omitted the 10.0 at the end.  Kinda tired today.  Guess I shouldn't have had that coke last night :)

Took the day off today.  Our running schedule is a little different because of the holiday weekend, so decided to make this my rest day and run on Friday instead.  Bought me another new pair of shoes yesterday :)  Found out why I didn't like the other new pair I had - they are neutral running shoes, I need the stability shoes.  Thought I had gotten those, but I thought wrong.  The nice guy at SL Running Co. showed me how you can tell on Mizuno's if they are stability.  Very helpful to know!!  Can't wait to try out the new shoes tomorrow morning!  I absolutely loved my last pair!

Ran with my sister and her husband to help them train for the 1/2 marathon in 2 weeks.  Kind of frustrating as her husband has to stop and walk quite a bit.  The last half of the run, I pulled a "Jillian".  I made him run for 7 minutes and then he could walk for 1 minute.  This lasted about 4 times, I think.  It shouldn't have been difficult as most of it was downhill.  Needless to say, I really didn't feel like I had run 11 miles after that.  I wanted to go further with my husband (he did 19), but I had a sick kid at Grammy's house so I thought I'd better stay back with him.  Glad to get back to my own training and pace :)