WTW

Guess what day it was today? If you guessed that it was Wednesday Track Workout (WTW) day then you would be correct. If you didn't guess that, then you don't know me at all.

It was really hot out. It was so warm that I couldn't believe that it was actually 7am.

Today was the third week of track workouts for me. I haven't officially started training for the Long Beach Half yet so I will be spending another month warming up at the track until I do. I think I am going to do another week of 800s before moving on to some ladder workouts, 400s or mile repeats. I need to work up to that stuff.

So this week I repeated the same workout I did the last couple of weeks. Which was six sets of 800s with a 2 minute recovery. I'm improving but it is slow going. Set 5 felt the easiest of them all but aside from the first set which was sort of a warm-up lap, it was also one of my slowest lap so that explains that. The last set is my fastest lap to date, since I started 2 two weeks ago. I felt pretty good running it. Maybe that just means that I could have spread some of that energy out to even up my overall pacing.

Summer, Summer, Summertime!

Time to sit back and unwind! ~ Fresh Prince

So sitting back and unwinding are probably two things I won't be doing too much of this summer...by choice.

One of the things I will likely be doing is cross-training on the X-Box playing Dance Central 2. Okay, so I don't really think DC-2 is cross-training as it pertains to running but it is a fun way to burn some extra calories. I came across this write-up comparing the calorie burn of running and dancing. I'm not too concerned about the calorie burn aspect as I am about learning to dance. This girl needs to find her rhythm cause it's no where in sight.

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I am also doing a spin challenge with my spin class in July and August. H'up h'up!

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Another thing I will be spending my summer doing is going to track more regularly. I went again this morning. I know, who am I? I did six sets of 800s again, just to see if there is actually something with this track thing. Apparently, there is. I know, who knew! I guess everyone else but me. I noticed that my pacing is evening out a bit more and it felt easier than last week. So I guess I will continue to do this.

In running related news as it pertains to me, I've signed up for the CIM on December 2nd! It will be my fall "A" race. I want to prepare myself enough to go out there and run a strong race. I've also never been to Sacramento before so I hope the restaurants in that area will be ready for my visit! I heard that Pam, Heather and Becka are also coming to play! Speaking of...Heather will be running her FIRST marathon ever this weekend at Rock n Roll Seattle!! Go and tell her that she's got this because she does!!

Back On Track

I went to track this morning. Can you believe it? I can't. I had wanted to go yesterday with OUAL and FasterBunny for TPT but I've been having a hard time getting out of bed early lately. Okay, who am I kidding...always. I've always had this problem.

I wasn't looking forward to doing this on my own but the bright side is that I didn't have to eat anyone's dust. I'm always picking up the rear. Eating-Dust is my middle name.

There is a track about a mile from my work which makes it the most perfect track in the world because jogging there is my warm-up and jogging back is my cool-down. Perfect. The only down side is that during track season it can get crowded or the track becomes off limits but the worse would have to be when the track athletes makes your 800s look like you're standing still. Yeah.

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Speaking of 800s, I did some this morning. Six of them with a 2 minute recovery in between. One uglier than the last. I was dealing with some shin splints that just wouldn't quit. I'm really rusty to say the least. Hopefully, it will be better next week.

Set 1 - 3:18
Set 2 - 3:32
Set 3 - 3:43
Set 4 - 3:46
Set 5 - 3:40
Set 6 - 3:38

Track and Fail

Today's post will be in list format because I am short on time but not on talking about useless info.  

1) Thank you for the nice comments despite my lackluster performance at Carlsbad last weekend.

2) Track workout! Haven't done any in a really long time. Felt like an overgrown slug out there. In an effort to resurrect ORF (Operation Run Faster), I tagged along for some 800s with Sarah and Margot this morning. Let me just say that getting up at the butt crack of dawn to do track work is not my idea of a good time but it helps to have other people there to suffer with. It was all very casual and they did not make me feel bad that I was a giant slug. I did a couple of warm-up laps before Sarah and Margot showed up and then did a couple more with them. We did 6 sets of 800s. Well I did them at my own pace. I've gotten slower since the last time I did track work (even my best lap was about 10 seconds slower than my previous time) but this is a good start to build from. The important thing is that I am looking forward to going back to improve on these.

1) 3:39
2) 3:35
3) 3:43
4) 3:50
5) 3:47
6) 3:40

I guess eating this buffalo burger from Whole Foods last night was a good call. Ok, maybe not. It wasn't very good either.

3) I spent some time last night working on my Tinkerbell Half costume. I am a big arts and craft nerd so this sort of thing is right up my alley. It is almost complete!

4) Finally, if you happen to be looking for some compression wear, head on over to Aspaeris because they are having a 50% off sale this week. Use code "cooleronline" at checkout! 

A 10 Mile Run

This week I started my training cycle for the Los Angeles Marathon coming up on March 18, 2012. I know that seems like ages away but I really want to improve my running base pace for that race and that means that I am planning on starting from scratch and building up. I am just coming off of a race recently so I have that base to build up from. I think I mentioned that I am not signed up for too many marathons next year because I want to focus more on improving my half marathon finish time and also to work on my marathon race pace. I guess next year is the year of 'less is more' and hopefully "more" means faster.

I went on my first official long run for Operation Run Faster (that's what I'm calling this training cycle). I will be logging my miles and pace more diligently to monitor my progress. Here are the stats from that 10 miler. Not entirely consistent but not that much off base either. I think my current race pace is a 9 minute mile and I want to make that number go down. I will use the next couple of weeks to assess my abilities and see what a realistic goal will be for me.

Mile 1 - 9:12                          Mile 6 - 9:04
Mile 2 - 8:42                          Mile 7 - 8:54
Mile 3 - 8:40                          Mile 8 - 9:13
Mile 4 - 9:14                          Mile 9 - 8:31
Mile 5 - 9:39                          Mile 10 - 8:31

This will be my bible for the next couple of months. I have a lot of work to do! Good thing I like to run.