CIM 2012: Week 2

(Still trying to catch you up. This was from two weeks ago.)

Week 2

Monday--yoga at noon
Tuesday--power
Wednesday--pilates, speed 4.88M
Thursday--rest
Friday-- hills 3x  5.05M
Saturday--long run 10.12M (poly trail loop)
Sunday--rest (no time to run; back-to-school shopping)
Total Miles--20.05M

I haven't missed any of my noontime yoga on Mondays. I'd like to keep this going.  I feel like my down dog is getting better.  My heels still don't touch the mat completely yet, but flexibility is coming. I can feel it.


Tuesday was power and I was alert about my sore ankle  which I developed from my long run this weekend.  Doing lunges (and we do a lot) can aggravate and otherwise already sore ankle. I wanted to increase the weights this week, but the smart thing to do was to hold off.


Noontime Pilates on Wednesdays  is always a treat. I am not disciplined enough to do this at home, but I am in class. Go figure!  The only thing is sometimes we do so much with the legs that when I do go on the track several hours later, I could feel that Pilates did some damage to my legs. But it's a good sore.  So at track today the the goal was to run 1600's, 1/2 lap recovery, 400, full lap recovery. The rest of the set is the same except it goes dowm from 1600s to 1200 then finally to 800.
This is one of my favorite workouts because it teaches the body to deal with running fast then having a brief rest period, then haul ass again. I hope we do  more of these. One thing I can improve upon during the next few weeks is shortening the amount of time I walk during the recovery period. Once I can jog or run slowly during the recover phase, then I'll know I am improving.  My splits were: 1600 (7:41); 1200 ( 7:47); 800 (7:40) and the 400s (7:06; 7:03, 7:05). Very, happy with these paces--there's room for improvement and it's still very early in the training.

I decided to take a rest day on Thursday. I was feeling tired--more so than usual.  I needed some fresh legs for the next day's hill work-out which I was a little nervous about. I haven't done them in a long time, since training for NY last fall. It's very easy to get injured if my posterior chain is not ready. So the past 7 weeks, hopefully my power workout will serve to strengthen them.


Friday was my first hill workout. I've had tremendous results with my hill spot from last year, so I decided that I will use this same hill and will serve as the benchmark for all subsequent my hill workouts. This hill is about a fifth of a mile long,  the exact grade I still have to figure out. It works out great that I am forced to have a 2 mile warm up before I get to my hill spot and conversely, a 2 mile cooldown for my way home. The only problem would be: later in the fall, when it gets darker earlier, this place will be a problem with all the blinding headlights coming at me. I'll worry about that later.  My hill repeats tonight were 7:49, 7:25 and 8:05.  I was very happy with these. When I compared these to my NY training, it wasn't until near the end of the training when I've reached these paces. I am very optimistic. I was definitely surprised.

San Luis Distance Club during Brian Waterbury Memorial Run

Saturday was dedicated to Brian Waterbury. He was the founder of our distance club who passed away in May 2003. Every year, San Luis Distance Club celebrates his birthday by running his favorite run at Cal Poly. It is an 8-mile hilly trail loop that he ran hundreds of times. Instead of running my long run on Sunday, this memorial run took its place.  We had a group of ten show up and then we had breakfast after. It was hot and humid, but bearable. It was a good running day.


SLDC Club member, Neil Silvers

That's my training partner Heidi and the fast Dave Dunbar

No running on Sunday. It worked out well, since my ankle got worked from the trail yesterday. I took my daughter for back-to-school shopping at the outlets in Gilroy. How times have changed.  I used to look forward to shopping all day. I must be getting old. And why are 12 year-old girls so darn picky? Well, we got shopping out of the way and I think she's ready for junior high. I'm hanging on to my hat!

Happy Running!