Wednesday, December 8, 2010

Playing Catch Up

I ran 8.25 Km at a pace of 7'22.

Playlist: iPod Shuffle- Orlando's first song was Let's Get it Started (so fitting).

Today I fit in an 8+ Km run after a job interview and before yoga (mostly, I had to do another K after the class). It was NOT a good run. I was in a neighbourhood that I was familiar with but someone told me that there was a track not too far from where I was. So I ran over to the track and did some laps. Then ran to the gym to do yoga.

There was another women running, mush faster than I was. I do not find other runners going past me discouraging. It makes me wonder when I will ever be that person. I know if I keep going that it will happen. I think that's the great thing about having done a race, I now have that as my reference point and I AM improving.

I am trying to get back on track with my training schedule having missed last week so I've done 3 days in a row now. It's difficult. I'm tired and sore. However, if I do two days on one day off as I was planning, it will take me 3 weeks to catch up. I want to get caught up as quickly as possible at the same time my pace time today was pretty slow, I spent a significant amount of time with a pace time of 8. I think I'll take tomorrow off (if there's no snow, there were a few flurries tonight). I know my body needs recovery time but I also have committed to following a training schedule in order to get some results before my next race.

I just ran spellcheck on this thing and there were no errors! Everything's coming up Morgan today.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Oh, Technology

I ran about 6.5 Km with a pace of about 7'16 at around 11 AM this morning with a temperature that felt like -13.

Playlist- Whatever I felt like

Route: I ran up and down the overpass on the Linc (I am not drawing a map of zig zags).

Today was a 6 & a halfer hill route. My run today was pretty good. I do actually feel myself getting stronger and am often surprised by my pace times. I find that I am at opposite ends of the spectrum though, I am either going 15 seconds faster than I am or 30 seconds slower than I think I am.

It was another chilly day and running over the bridge I knew it would be windy. I wore a scarf this time and knew I could put my hood up if I needed to (see last blog post for further understanding). The scarf really provided added warmth. I was quite surprised at the difference. I decided for my hill run to go up and down the only true hill I know so I ran up and down the overpass about a kilometre from where I live. It was effective and a much better hill run experience than my last one.

I think it was a little chilly for Orlando, my iPod. I think at about 3 k he shut down. I was distraught knowing that I could continue running but I wouldn't know my pace times and the entire run wouldn't be logged. I am ashamed to say it, in that instant, I started to walk home. I didn't want to run if I wasn't going to know my results. However; Orlando resurrected himself (I suspect it may have been a little too cold for him so I popped him into my pocket). I finished off my run and feel like I did pretty well. And that is that.

With this run I have now logged over 400 K on my Nike+! I probably shouldn't rely on technology so much but I do. I am a very results driven person (it seems). Especially after knocking off so much time in my last run.

One Month

I ran 5 km on 6/12/2010 at 6:46 AM with a pace of 7'13
http://go.nike.com/04pq8phk


Playlist:

NONE (I know eh?!)

Route

It's true, I took a bit of a hiatus from running last week but I'm back at it this week. I haven't been sleeping well and have had school and other obligations. Really, these are just excuses, but I'm ok with that.

I got up at 6:30 this morning and debated on whether I REALLY wanted to go for a run at this time in the morning when I noticed from my station in bed snow on the rooftops. That was enough of a motivator, with the slight skiff I knew if I wanted to run on snow I'd have to make it happen soon. I got such pleasure out of running along the sidewalk where no one else had yet to tread or running in the opposite direction of the other footprints and imagining that those other people were out there because they HAD to be, I was out there cuz I WANTED to be. It was my first real winter run and I donned all kinds of wick away materials, long sleeve lulu shirt, short sleeve underarmour, then an underarmour hoodie and lulu shorts under underarmour pants. I did fine. I wasn't cold until I was running into the headwind and my ears got cold. I literally just realised I could have put my hood on. Wow. ANYWAYS I was so very happy to be out there and it's snowing again so I think I'll have to log some more early morning ks tomorrow as well.

In addition, today marks one month since my first race. During which, I've committed to a training schedule. Aside from not running all last week, I've tried to stick to it. I also decided that I would run a 5 k the same as I did race day, no music, no knowing how far I'd gone until close to the end, I know my running routes well so it's not difficult to gauge how close to being done I am. So I did my 5 K today all by myself just using my body to tell me how I was doing. Nov 6th I did it in just over 40 minutes. Dec 6th I did it in just over 36. I knocked, what I feel, a decent amount of time off my 5 K. 4 minutes! Woo. It was great. I was so proud of myself. I can't wait to see how well I will do in my next race.

This progress is so motivational.

Monday, December 6, 2010

Ya, I fell.

I ran 5.47 k @ 7'32
My playlist:
Just my iPod on shuffle

Route:

 

This post is over a week delayed. I did this run on Grey Cup Sunday. I had a lot booked that day. Went to my aunt's to watch the first quarter of the game,then over to visit my mini best friend as I hadn't seen her in a while, went home changed into my running clothes ran during half time and the third quarter, returned to my aunt's.  I was glad that I managed to fit in my run.

My training schedule called for a 4.82 run with 6 100 m sprints afterwards. So obviously that's what I did. I would just like to say that my sprint times were slower than the dude who won the marathon at the race I was at. I was tired but the sprints at the end were oddly invigorating.

I have fallen whilst running before, most notably before a wedding that I was in, I had a couple of scrapes but nothing too serious. This time though, it was in front of a family out for a stroll. I was actually moving around them and stepped onto the grass but the level between the ground and the sidewalk was different and I rolled my ankle. I quickly scrambled up, somewhat embarassed, but less so than I would have expected, grabbed my iPod reassured them repeatedly that I was ok and moved along.

What interests me is that moment where you know you're going down and the thoughts that cross your mind. In aforementioned fall before the wedding I was like, "Oh shit, my pace time! followed by Ohhhhhhhhhhhhh the weddiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing". This time it was "hm New Things November, I've never fallen in front of people while jogging before".

Point is- Don't run if you're going to be in wedding pictures and falling isn't so bad, if anything you run away faster out of pure shame. Unless of course you're injured...that's not happened to me yet, luckily. I suspect because I've fallen so many times I've perfected the art and automatically fall in a protective manner.