Merry Christmas!

It was such a nice morning for my 4 mile run! Marissa gave me a Virginia is for Runners technical tee so I wore that with a running skirt since it was only 50* out.  Had a bit of a head wind for about half of it was amazingly was able to still maintain a 10 minute mile pace.  I was pleasantly surprised when I saw my time at the end.  Gonna take the kiddo hiking after breakfast and presents, so pictures to come later.  Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!  Happy running!

Personal Best

Okay, I know that habitual training will eventually make me faster, but I don't think it dawned on me that I would ever PR in a training run.  Today was my second run with the new training plan and I just ran a 32:32 5k time.  This is of course slow by normal standards, but I ran my last 5k in 32:46 which was also a PR for me.  I think part of my problem was a mental block.  For some reason I could never run an entire training run, then my coach told me I had to, and since then I haven't stopped once.  We'll see how Saturday goes since that is a 4 mile run, but I'm happy with where I'm at at the moment.  That isn't to say that I won't want more soon though.  I always want more.

I just realized....

I just realized how much I need to stretch after my runs.  Over the last months, my hamstrings have been getting tighter and tighter, to the point where I could feel them tightening up more on my last run.  Now, I have no one to blame but myself since I was too lazy to stretch well after a run, but we're changing that.  The new goal is to get up early enough to fit my run in, followed by 20 minutes of Yoga.  I did the Yoga this morning even though I had no run scheduled, and found out just how much flexibility I've lost over the last year.  Not that I was that flexible before but.....  I have a long way to go.

The Plan

Okay.  I met with the new Running coach from Peak Training tonight to go over my race goals and to see the game plan.  In short, I don't eat enough to fuel my runs and have been overtraining.  Not really what I expected to here I think.  I now have the new training plan and will be receiving my new meal plan by email.  I will be logging my runs as well as my water and food intake to report back to my coach.  I also have core training that I have to do everyday.  I am committed to doing what I need to do to get ready for this Half Marathon.  I think that it's going to be hard for me since it will require actual preparation as far as meals go, but it's necessary.  I'm looking forward to my first training run under the new plan.  Happy running.

3 mile run

The run went okay this morning.  I signed up with Peak Training to help get me ready for my Half Marathon.  I have a fitness assessment tomorrow evening, but since we won't have time to do my 3 mile run tomorrow night, I got to do it today.  My instructions were to eat before (I hate eating before a run), and run the whole 3 miles at a comfortable pace, but no walking.  I used to sportband instead of my ipod and nike+, which may not have been the best decision, but I made it through the whole thing.  There were times in the run that I was thinking "on a normal day I would have walked here" if my legs were starting to get stiff.  I kept going though.  It's not my fastest 3 miles, but it is my fastest training run.  Normally I walk/run my training days.  Oh yeah, I even ate before I ran.  A half a bagel with cream cheese and some milk, so I could get enough protein.  My knee was feeling a little off for the last quarter mile, but the last half mile is at a decline.  For some reason my knee does not like going down hills.  I will need to figure something out for this since not all runs are completely flat.  So, my time was 34'22.  I did a .3 mile cool down and am feeling pretty decent.  I think some yoga and pilates is in order to get my knees feeling 100%.  Happy running!

Healing

Well, my knee is feeling much better after the holiday.  That day of rest that I took really seemed to help.  I have another 3 on the board for tomorrow so we'll see how it goes.  Definitely getting excited.  There aren't many days left until I can register for the race and I can't wait.  I have so much stuff that I want to do before the trip, and to get ready for the trip.  One thing at a time though.  Happy running!