Training for 7/31/09

More weight training upstairs this morning.

Well, it’s the last day of the month, so let’s take a look at what I’ve been up to in July.

Mileage:

• Week 1 (July 1-4): 16 miles
• Week 2 (July 5-11): 22 miles
• Week 3 (July 12-18): 22 miles
• Week 4 (July 19-25): 23 miles
• Week 5 (July 26-31): 13 miles

Grand total: 96 miles

Notable this month was my progress in my tempo runs. Running them on a track, which let me measure the distance precisely instead of just guessing on the road, was a big help. I shaved off more than a minute from my time in the mile, going from a 7:53 mile my first time on the track (July 9) to a 6:50 mile my most recent time (July 30). That was also my first sub-7 mile.

In terms of distance, July 25 was my first double digit run, when I completed 10.5 miles.

And, most importantly, I did not miss a single scheduled workout. Which means I suffered no injuries at all. Eat that, Nike.

Tomorrow, I’ll start off August with another 10.5 miles first thing in the morning before my alcohol class. Then I’m heading to Ocean City for the rest of the weekend.

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Training for 7/30/09

Another tempo run, another mile PR. Ho hum.

Joke. I’m actually pretty excited about this one.

This morning, I did my tempo run at the high school track — one mile warm-up, first fast mile, 1/2 mile recovery, second fast mile, one mile recovery/cool-down.

And those fast miles were… *drum roll*…..

6:50 and 7:00.

My first sub-7 mile! This was after Clark told me, as we were getting ready to leave the house, that I needed to run a mile in under seven minutes because he was “tired of you being slow.” Clark is not into positive reinforcement. Or he might have just been joking.

Either way, it happened, and I’m really excited about it. I’m also impressed that my warm-up mile at an easy pace clocked in at 8:07, only about 20 seconds slower than one of my fast miles a few weeks ago and quite a bit faster than my goal half marathon pace of 8:23/mile. I am looking forward to this race more and more every day.

Training for 7/29/09

Today was my half-hour trail run. It was extremely humid today, as evidenced by the ‘T’ my darling fiance made with his urine in our lane last night, which was still clearly visible this morning. Now that’s moisture in the air.

Speaking of him, he was also able to hook up my iPod to his computer at work and restore it to factory settings, which fixed the nonresponsive click wheel problem but, of course, wiped out all 1,700 of my songs. So I know what I’ll be doing tonight. I’m just glad to have it back in commission!

Training for 7/28/09

Today I had to get up early for my speed intervals, as I had a doctor’s appointment in Easton before work. It always amazes me how, no matter how early I have to get up or how tired I feel when I drag myself out of bed, I’m always wide awake and ready to go by the time my feet hit the road.

Anyway, I did both sets of speed intervals and even saw another runner on the road. And he had a friendly unleashed dog who ran over to me and let me pet him! Made my day.

Training for 7/27/09

This morning was weight training.

The weekend went like this:

Saturday: 10.5-miler, early enough to see the sunrise, finished in about 92 minutes, 8:45/mile pace.

Sunday: Rest day at the beach.

However, tragedy struck. The click wheel on my stupid iPod stopped working after the run Saturday morning.  I’m beyond pissed about this, as I’ve only had it five months. Piece of junk.

Training for 7/24/09

This morning was weight training. As usual, I was hating life while doing the traveling lunges, but, while they may hurt, they work.

I’m pretty psyched about tomorrow morning. A 10.5-mile run at the crack of dawn. My first venture into double digit territory! I drove the route a couple days ago just to see exactly how long it was, and the road is very narrow and twisty between the ferry and Galestown. Plus, hardly anyone lives out there, it’s mostly fields and woods and you can see the river for a portion of it. It should be a pretty run.

Of course, I have to get up that early to get it in before my 9 a.m. alcohol class in Georgetown. After tomorrow, it’ll be three weeks down, three to go.

The rest of the weekend is a Jeff Dunham performance at the Delaware State Fair tomorrow night and the beach on Sunday. I love summer.

Training for 7/23/09

This morning, I woke up to rain pounding down for the first time in weeks. Up to this point, I have been a total wuss about running in rain, but today, I decided to just go to the track and do my tempo run anyway. After all, there’s always a chance it’ll rain on a race day, and they don’t do rain dates. So I need to stop being such a pansy.

I’m really glad I did. No. 1, rain is not a big deal. Who knew? Of course, it had tapered to a light rain by the time I got to the track, but that would have kept me inside a few months ago.

No. 2, I ran, to my knowledge, my two fastest miles ever. Apparently, a lot of people do a half-mile “recovery jog” in between the tempo miles, and I tried that today, so that probably helped the second mile.

Here are the times:

• Warm-up mile: 8:45
• Tempo mile: 7:05
• Half-mile recovery
• Tempo mile: 7:00
• 1.5-mile recovery and cool-down

Now, if I could just string together 3.1 of those tempo miles, I’d have a pretty kick-ass 5K time.

Considering that a mere two weeks ago, my fast miles were 7:35 and 7:53, I would call this progress. I think I can definitely get my 5K time down to 21:42, which would be a full two minutes faster than my current best time at that distance.

So, to sum it up, I got over my aversion to running in rain AND ran a 7-minute mile on the same day. Go me.

Training for 7/22/09

This morning I did my usual Wednesday morning half-hour trail run. Today was notable in that I found the rest of the cross country trail. I think I’ve run the whole thing now. Also, I ran through the biggest spider web yet. Gross.

Training for 7/21/09

This morning was 4.5 miles — 3.5 miles of speed intervals and an easy mile back home. The rundown:

• Jog for two minutes to warm up.
• Do first set of intervals: 2 minutes of hard running, followed by 2 minutes of recovery jogging, repeat; then five sets of 30 seconds of hard running followed by 30 seconds of recovery jogging.
• Walk 90 seconds.
• Second set of intervals: Each interval of hard running is followed by a 1-minute recovery jog. The intervals form a “pyramid”: 30 seconds, 45 seconds, 1 minute, 90 seconds, 1 minute, 45 seconds, 30 seconds.
• Walk two minutes.
• Run home at easy pace.

And done.

This morning, I needed no extra walk breaks between any of the intervals. Go me.

Training for 7/20/09

It’s Monday, so this morning was weight training. I’m getting better at pull-ups. When I first started lifting with Clark a few years ago, I could not do one pull-up without major help from Clark. This morning I did seven in a row, and then got in another three, completely unassisted.

The weekend went as planned. I did 9.5 miles Saturday morning in 1 hour and 22 minutes, the same pace as last weekend (8:37/mile), and Sunday was a much-enjoyed rest day.