Well, it was bound to happen sooner or later: a week where I didn't get my act together and complete all my scheduled workouts. This week between doctor's appointments, my office picnic (which lasted hours longer than anticipated), continued hot temperatures and a fair amount of laziness, I skipped my long run which was supposed to be 8 miles. I also only managed to do one afternoon of yoga.
Let's see what I did do:
Monday: 2 miles
Tuesday: Yoga
Wednesday: 3 miles
Saturday: 5 miles
It looks rather pitiful listed out like that, doesn't it. Bah! I'm entitled to a bad week every once in a while but I'm still not happy about it.
And now as punishment, we don't get to listen to RT's cover of Keep on Running, we have to listen to his unreleased solo song Two Sharp Pencils, which features RT's voice being electronically lowered and is about as dreadful as my training was this week.
Sorry to do that to you, folks. I'll try to get my act together next week!
Showing posts with label Why am I running my fourth half marathon in October?. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Why am I running my fourth half marathon in October?. Show all posts
Sunday, August 15, 2010
Sunday, August 8, 2010
Week Two: Keep On Running
Alright, readers, it's time to check in on my weekly half marathon training schedule. This week, due to a few unforeseen appointments, I ended up doing my first "brick" workout, which means two workouts-a-day. The heat has also caused me to slow down tremendously. A rule of thumb is that your pace slows 15-30 seconds/mile for each 5 degrees over 65: it was 80 degrees this morning when I finished my long run so you do the math. Perhaps I should call it my weekly long "crawl".
Monday: 3 easy miles
Tuesday: 5 miles (1 mile, 2x1600 m w/ 800m recoveries, 1 mile)
Wednesday: Yoga
Friday: 2 easy miles/Yoga
Sunday: 7 mile long run
Yay! Week 2 is a success! In celebration, let's listen to RT's version of this post's namesake: Keep on Running (if I hadn't completed my workout this week, I would have made you listen to The Whisperers, probably the worst song ever so be grateful that I struggled through today's long run!).
Let the celebration and well wishing commence!
Monday: 3 easy miles
Tuesday: 5 miles (1 mile, 2x1600 m w/ 800m recoveries, 1 mile)
Wednesday: Yoga
Friday: 2 easy miles/Yoga
Sunday: 7 mile long run
Yay! Week 2 is a success! In celebration, let's listen to RT's version of this post's namesake: Keep on Running (if I hadn't completed my workout this week, I would have made you listen to The Whisperers, probably the worst song ever so be grateful that I struggled through today's long run!).
Let the celebration and well wishing commence!
Saturday, July 31, 2010
New Weekly Feature: Keep on Running
This blog is supposed to be about Queen, fashion/shopping, and running.
I've got the fashion/shopping part covered. Between my daily What I Wore posts, Anthropologie Fitting Room Reviews, Fashion Challenges, and Outfit Polls, I think a good 75% of my non-working/sleeping day is spent shopping, thinking about shopping, or writing about shopping.
The Queen part, I've been pretty good about too. I've stuck to my plan of highlighting a Queen Song of the Week every Friday, detailed meeting Dr. May, wished the boys birthday wishes, and occasionally ranted about various business decisions.
The running part?
Eh - not so much. Sure, I ran some posts called "Running Essentials" but running is a pretty straightforward sport. Once you have a couple of things, you're pretty much good to go. I have a few more that I can write, but that's not enough to properly feature the third component of my blog.
I've also been slagging off a bit in my training. This summer has been the most hot and humid that I can ever remember. The temperature hasn't dipped below 70 degrees (nights included) in weeks and the humidity is frequently about 75%. In the winter, my treadmill is a viable option, but in the summer, it's a recipe for heat stroke: there's no air conditioning in that room and no matter how many fans I set up, I cannot generate enough air circulation to make me not want to die.
This is a bit of a problem, however, since my fellow princesses have convinced me to run my fourth half marathon in October.
Hence, my new weekly feature "Keep on Running", loosely based on Designer Me's Monday Training Posts (click here) and named after a song originally by the Spencer Davis Group that Roger Taylor recorded (and didn't release) during his 1984 Strange Frontier sessions.
Basically I'm going to post my half marathon training plan every week and then I'll say which workouts I successfully completed. If I have a good week and follow the training plan, you will all congratulate me and I'll be happy. If I have a bad week and slag off, you will all yell at me and I'll be publicly embarrassed.
See? Fun for everyone!
To generate my workouts, I use the SmartCoach training program on the Runners World website. You have to be a member of Runners World to use SmartCoach, but membership is free. I plugged in my recent 10K time of 1:05:00, selected a 10 week training program, that I typically run 15-20 miles a week, and that I wanted a moderately hard program.
I'm also going to try to work in yoga at least twice a week. Occasionally, I'll combine shorter runs (like the 2 milers this week) into one longer run.
Now, here comes the fun part: did I stick to my workout schedule for Week 1?
Sunday: Yoga
Monday: 2 mile easy run
Wednesday: 5 mile tempo run
Thursday: Yoga
Friday: 2 mile easy run
Saturday: 7 mile long run
What this week has taught me is that not running in the hot/humid weather makes running much more difficult that a tough run in hot/humid weather. Typically your pace slows in the summer, but when you combine that with basically being lazy for an entire month, your pace ends up essentially a crawl. The best thing I can say about my runs this week is that I got through them.
I will say this though: already this feature is having an impact on my training. At about 3 miles in today, I really really wanted to call Husband and make him come get me, but then I thought to myself, "Geesh - I can't run the silly feature for the first time and not have completely made it through all the runs," so I sucked it up and got through 4 more miles. Hopefully this shame will carry me through the next nine weeks until the Diva Half Marathon.
So Week 1 of my Half Marathon Training Program was a success. You can now commence the obligatory congratulatory comments!
I'm off to the Red Sox game now. I'll be back tomorrow with the wrap-up and final outfit in my 18 for 18 Challenge.
Happy Running!
And GO Red Sox!
I've got the fashion/shopping part covered. Between my daily What I Wore posts, Anthropologie Fitting Room Reviews, Fashion Challenges, and Outfit Polls, I think a good 75% of my non-working/sleeping day is spent shopping, thinking about shopping, or writing about shopping.
The Queen part, I've been pretty good about too. I've stuck to my plan of highlighting a Queen Song of the Week every Friday, detailed meeting Dr. May, wished the boys birthday wishes, and occasionally ranted about various business decisions.
The running part?
Eh - not so much. Sure, I ran some posts called "Running Essentials" but running is a pretty straightforward sport. Once you have a couple of things, you're pretty much good to go. I have a few more that I can write, but that's not enough to properly feature the third component of my blog.
I've also been slagging off a bit in my training. This summer has been the most hot and humid that I can ever remember. The temperature hasn't dipped below 70 degrees (nights included) in weeks and the humidity is frequently about 75%. In the winter, my treadmill is a viable option, but in the summer, it's a recipe for heat stroke: there's no air conditioning in that room and no matter how many fans I set up, I cannot generate enough air circulation to make me not want to die.
This is a bit of a problem, however, since my fellow princesses have convinced me to run my fourth half marathon in October.
Hence, my new weekly feature "Keep on Running", loosely based on Designer Me's Monday Training Posts (click here) and named after a song originally by the Spencer Davis Group that Roger Taylor recorded (and didn't release) during his 1984 Strange Frontier sessions.
Basically I'm going to post my half marathon training plan every week and then I'll say which workouts I successfully completed. If I have a good week and follow the training plan, you will all congratulate me and I'll be happy. If I have a bad week and slag off, you will all yell at me and I'll be publicly embarrassed.
See? Fun for everyone!
To generate my workouts, I use the SmartCoach training program on the Runners World website. You have to be a member of Runners World to use SmartCoach, but membership is free. I plugged in my recent 10K time of 1:05:00, selected a 10 week training program, that I typically run 15-20 miles a week, and that I wanted a moderately hard program.
I'm also going to try to work in yoga at least twice a week. Occasionally, I'll combine shorter runs (like the 2 milers this week) into one longer run.
Now, here comes the fun part: did I stick to my workout schedule for Week 1?
Sunday: Yoga
Monday: 2 mile easy run
Wednesday: 5 mile tempo run
Thursday: Yoga
Friday: 2 mile easy run
Saturday: 7 mile long run
What this week has taught me is that not running in the hot/humid weather makes running much more difficult that a tough run in hot/humid weather. Typically your pace slows in the summer, but when you combine that with basically being lazy for an entire month, your pace ends up essentially a crawl. The best thing I can say about my runs this week is that I got through them.
I will say this though: already this feature is having an impact on my training. At about 3 miles in today, I really really wanted to call Husband and make him come get me, but then I thought to myself, "Geesh - I can't run the silly feature for the first time and not have completely made it through all the runs," so I sucked it up and got through 4 more miles. Hopefully this shame will carry me through the next nine weeks until the Diva Half Marathon.
So Week 1 of my Half Marathon Training Program was a success. You can now commence the obligatory congratulatory comments!
I'm off to the Red Sox game now. I'll be back tomorrow with the wrap-up and final outfit in my 18 for 18 Challenge.
Happy Running!
And GO Red Sox!
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