Intervals

I ran seven quarter mile intervals at 8mph/7:30 pace, and walked a quarter mile in between each run. On the treadmill. It was surprisingly easy. I could have done more intervals, but I'm trying to stay at least somewhat true to the training plan I downloaded. It was supposed to be 7X400, but 440 is easier to track on the treadmill...the math is easier. :)

We leave for Yakima tonight, to spend Thanksgiving in our home over there. We're renting it to "Pop" (FIL), and we are spending Thanksgiving with him. Hopefully that means we'll be spending Christmas here, and moving into our new rental right around that time.

I Got to See My House!!!!!

Yippee! I got to see the inside of the house we're moving into. It's beautiful! It's so much nicer than I imagined! I forget if there were 3 or 4 bedrooms, but suffice it to say, we have room for company! So after tax season, "Come on over!". :)

Back, Legs, and 3 Mile Easy Run

I probably shouldn't even list legs in the title, I did so little. I warmed up with bear crawl across the gym, spiderman crawl back, then walking lunges. Assisted pullups, 3 sets of 8; 1 set of chest dips (my neck is kinked up and these weren't helping, so I stopped); seated rows supersetted with face pulls for 3 sets of 15; and 2 sets of goblet squats X 10 reps, going as low as Laura showed in her picture. I liked those a lot.

I did my 3 mile easy run on the treadmill today, and forgot to take my iPod (I just typed walkman again. :( ). I watched the subtitles on the morning news.

Rest Day!

Poor little Cisco didn't get the short, recovery runs I had planned with her. We were without a shower from Friday night until around 3:00 yesterday afternoon. The plumbing was backed up, and kitchen sink was coming up in the tub. Ick! So not only were we without a shower, we were without a kitchen sink as well. Everything else, thankfully, worked fine. We had a dinner date with a group of friends on Saturday night, so we went to our best friends' house to shower. Ahhhh.

I laid out my gym clothes and expected to lift some weights this morning, but my body didn't feel like getting out of bed. I've come to realize when it does that, to allow it. So I slept in until 7:30!!!!

I have a massage appointment at 11:00 today. {relaxed sigh!}

My First Running PR! :)

OK. I think I have calmed down enough that I can shorten up what I would have posted an hour ago, LOL! I was still pretty jazzed up when I got to the office, and called out to my partner, "Honey, I'm home!" as I walked in the door. He had a gig at the casino last night, so he's not matching my energy level today. :)

Went to the gym, saw my fit friend B and got totally jealous that she has started ballet classes that are held at 10:00 a.m. She's an RN, but has been retired for at least 7 years to raise their daughter she had at 40. So she gets to do fun stuff like that. She is also so fit that when she did the initial Fit Test for Insanity, she scored higher than the chick in the video, and didn't see what the big deal was. Remember...she wore a weight vest to Fit Camp. Anyway, we've been missing each other at the gym, and were totally excited to see each other.

I did a TRX workout. I've been concerned that my arms are starting to look a little flat, so I did biceps curls and triceps extensions on the TRX, then handstand pushups on the MaxRack. For those, I set the bar at collar bone height, hooked my feet on the bar and did pushups, concentrating on shoulders rather than chest. I'm still a little piked in that position...not a "true" handstand pushup. So 12 curls, 12 extensions, 8 pushups, then 16 each side single leg squats (hold at the bottom), 3 times through. The first time thru, I also did 10 pikes on the TRX, but I totally forgot about them on the 2 and 3rd set and remembered while I was blowing my hair dry. Doh!

I drove from the gym to the FLAT to run. So that explains my PR to a certain extent. No screwing around with the hills at all. Today was supposed to be an easy 3 miles. I started running, and I could tell by how quickly my HR jumped up that I was going faster than usual. I felt really good, so I forced myself to just concentrate on running and feeling good, and NOT look at my Garmin. I didn't want to speed up or slow down based on what I saw. I knew it would take about 10 minutes to go a mile, so I watched my sports watch, and started checking just the distance on my Garmin when I got close. (OK...scratch that about this being a shorter post! LMAO!) I used the lap feature so I could see my splits for the miles. I ran a mile West, turned around and ran the mile back, hit lap again and ran 1/2 a mile (I was back at my truck at 2 miles), then hit lap and came back the 1/2 mile. I finished the 3 miles in 26:23! :-D

I ran the first mile in 8:43, the second in 8:56; the next half mile at 8:07 pace; and the last half mile at 7:46 pace! Which is funny, because I was fumbling with my jacket zipper in that last half mile and perceived that I lost time with that. In the second mile, I had a fast time of 7:05...that was when a semi was waiting on me to cross a crosswalk, and he was holding up traffic waiting to turn. I "sprinted" to get across and get out of everyone's way. I paid for that, too. Took a while to recover.

I have a new max HR. For the first time, I exceeded 179. In that last 1/2 mile today, I hit 182. Still kinda sitting here waiting for my heart to explode, but so far, so good.

Now I'm taking the weekend off, or might take Cisco for short dog jogs. She'd like that! (In another post, I'll tell you why [besides the obvious] I've decided that it's a doberman I want for a running partner. Endurance vs. sprint, plus other fun facts.)

One last thought: when I finished, I still felt FANTASTIC. My legs felt like they didn't even need a stretch, where usually they are TOAST. I'm learning the difference between the hills and the flat! Of course, I did stretch really well anyway. When I got back to the house, my calves cramped up big time as I got out of the truck, LOL!

The Plan

I'm posting this here so I will get up and do it! J got stuck in Forks tonight, so I went to the movies. I saw "A Christmas Carol", and was SO HAPPY they followed closely with Dickens. I LOVE THAT BOOK! My favorite line is, "There's more of gravy than of grave about you!" and they left that in. I guess I was afraid they would have modernized the language. But they stayed true to period. It was very good. The tightwad in me was a little peeved that you pay a $2 surcharge for the 3D glasses, and you don't get to keep them. I had someone else's cootie glasses! Yuck! Of course, I think the last 3D thing I saw was "Body Wars", the Michael Jackson ride at Disney...at least I *think* that was 3D. Regardless, the glasses were paper, not plastic.

Anyway, back to the plan...I want to get up at 4:00 and go do a TRX workout, then run my 3 mile easy run. No problem, right? Except that it's 9:45 and I'm not in bed yet. Doh! So by posting this here, I'll force myself to get up and go.

Right now I'm going to put myself into a carb coma by having a bowl of oatmeal and cinnamon. And yeah, I'll cook some egg whites too. I'm hungry.

Why Me?

When I got accepted into the Brooks ID program, I was SO EXCITED. Still am. Part of what comes with it is access to the Brooks ID Yahoo group. A lot of the new members are introducing themselves, and writing about what kind of running they do. Older members are welcoming new and discussing like passions. There are ultra runners, trail runners, iron men, and LOTS of marathoners. LOTS of people who have qualified for the Boston Marathon.

As I "look around the room", I am floored that I got in. I'm the little guy, the newbie, the one who first tried running in my 20's and my knees couldn't take it. (I hadn't figured out at that point that it was my feet that were the problem.) It took 20 years later to find the right shoe, the right doctor, and the right orthotic, and thankfully, they all came together at the same time.

Yesterday, This Guy introduced himself to the group. I went to his site, read his story, then checked out the photo gallery and was moved to tears.

Then I sat back and wondered, "Why me? Why in the world did they want lil ol' me?" I am honored to be a part of this group, and inspired to see what I can become with the motivation of having Brooks behind me. 2010 is going to be an exciting year!