Monday, February 17th:
I started this week off right - with yoga. I've been saying for a while that I want to start doing yoga at home. I finally went through my pinned yoga sequences, and picked a few to try. I picked two that were listed as good for running, one for abs, and one that was restorative. I went through a lot of sequences that I didn't use, some that had poses I wasn't familiar with, and some that didn't fully describe how to get from one pose to the next.
I printed out the full sequence for all of them, which included a large image of the pose, as well as a little description of how to get from one pose to the next. The text wasn't very large, which was the first problem. I am used to following a yoga instructor, who will give the necessary directions, and I found that I kept having to refer to the text to see what to do. In some cases, I just came out of the pose and found my way into the next.
I think that I may try to find some videos or podcasts, so I can get some verbal cues, while I'm trying to refresh my yoga skills (whatever skills I had after a few months of it, at least). I did like the sequences that I did, and I think that they may be easier to get through the next time I try.
Complement Your Cardio: Long and Lean Yoga Flow: Down Dog, Warrior 1, Rotated Side Angle, Reverse Warrior, Half Moon, Bound Extended Side Angle, Wide-Legged Forward Bend, Open Lizard, Pigeon, Seated Spinal Twist, Half Wheel, Savasana
Lengthen and Strengthen Your Runner's Legs: Three-Legged Dog, Extended Table Top, Intense Side Stretch, Revolved Triangle, Rotated Side Angle, Reverse Warrior, Bent Standing Split, Burning Lunge, Open Lizard, Pigeon, Camel, Reclined Hero (couldn't do this one), Wide Straddle, Butterfly
Flatten Your Belly with Yoga: Down Dog, Arching Three-Legged Dog, Knee Up Plank, Warrior 1, Warrior 3, One-Legged Four-Limbed Staff, Side Plank, Balancing Star, Quarter Dog, Child's Pose, Boat, Intense East, Extended Squat, Crow (my favorite)
Seated Relaxing Yoga Sequence: Extended Wide Squat, Happy Baby, Figure Four, Reclining Twist, Child's Pose, Pigeon, Sphinx, Head to Knee Pose, Wide Straddle, Plow (I don't like doing these), Savasana
One weird thing - once I got home from lab, I was looking at facebook, and saw that there was something on my page that I had apparently pinned 40 minutes ago on pinterest. I knew I hadn't (it was pretty obvious because it wasn't food or exercise), so I went onto pinterest to check it out. It told me that something was fishy with my recent activity (I'm glad it caught it so quickly), and I had to reset my password. I took care of that, and then when I went to check it out, I saw that someone had changed my profile information, and had created a new board and pinned one thing to it. So strange! Hopefully it's all worked out, but it makes me worry about the security of the site, and I really hope someone didn't figure out my password. Plus, who would want to hack onto a pinterest account, and why??
Tuesday, February 18th:
This was another hard interval treadmill workout. The original plan was to do something similar to what I've done before - 1 mile warmup (5.7mph), 4 miles at goal pace (average of 6.1mph), 1 mile cooldown (5.7mph). I asked Joey what he recommended, thinking he was just going to play around with the distance, since the actual half marathon training said to do a 2 mile warmup, and 5 miles at goal pace. He then asked what I was hoping to get out of the training program - to do the 10 miles, or to get faster. I had to think about it for a minute, but then answered that I wanted to be able to run 10 miles comfortably, that was my main goal, but I also wanted to get a bit faster. He suggested that I increase the pace during the 4 miles - that instead of staying comfortable at 6.1, that I should try to keep it between 6.2 and 6.3. Not a huge difference, but enough to make the run more difficult.
I decided to do what I had done on Sunday, with going up and down every quarter mile, just to change it up. In order to keep my average pace between 6.2 and 6.3, I ranged from 6.1 to 6.4. The last mile was definitely hard, since I was climbing up in pace the whole time. I did my warmup and cooldown at 5.6, to make it a bit easier. While it was a hard run, I finished the whole thing! I'm hoping that it's just one more thing that will make me a better runner.
Wednesday, February 19th:
I did my first kettle bell workout in weeks! Literally, it's been four weeks. And oh man did it hurt. I did the workout with Joey, which of course meant that it was going to be crazy hard.
We did two century-style sets, but went through them in different ways. The first set, we did it as a "you go, I go" workout, so we had built-in breaks. I managed to go fast enough for Joey's liking, and we went through for a total of 5 times! We took a 10 minute break to get water, etc, and then went into the second set. With this set, we each went at our own pace, and tried to do as many times through as we could in 20 minutes. We were both in the middle of a set at 20 minutes, and finished in just about 23 minutes - me with 3 times through, Joey with 4 times through. Let's just say that set #2 was WAY more difficult than set #1.
After we finished with the KB sets, we each did some extra things. Joey did some tabata sets with squats and pullups (I think). I decided to get back into my assisted pullups. I basically had to start from scratch. I started with the assistance at 90lbs, and barely got 8 pullups. My grip must have been giving out, since I kept slipping. I rested for 2 minutes, then moved the assistance to 100lbs and just barely did 10. Then I rested another 2 minutes, and did another 8 at 100lbs. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get back to where I was - I think I was at 60lbs last summer (for 3 sets of 10), and was getting close to being able to do one unassisted.
Then I decided that I should do some wall sits, since I read that they're good for runners. I did 3 wall sits, for 30 seconds each. My quads were actually shaking, by the end of each one. Joey had to help pull me out of them, since I couldn't stand on my own.
Thursday, February 20th:
EVERYTHING hurt today. Everything. I'm so glad that my run was just supposed to be an easy 5 mile run. The weather has gotten much nicer this week - it's been at least 50 every day since Tuesday. A lot of the snow has melted, so I took a chance and went on my run outside. There were some areas where I had to jump off the sidewalk into the street, where there was a patch of snow, but it was mostly okay. My legs were just so sore and tight, I moved really slowly in the first couple miles. I started to loosen up toward the end, but once I got home, everything tightened up.
Saturday, February 22nd:
This was another run that we modified slightly. The plan was to do 1 mile warmup, 4 miles at marathon-marathon+30sec pace, then 1 mile cooldown. Joey said that I should try to do the 4 miles at goal pace + 15-20 sec, meaning about 10:15-10:20 pace. That I certainly didn't need to really push the pace, but that I should try to do it a little faster than my easy slow pace. For some reason, that made me nervous. I knew I would be running 11 miles the next day, and I didn't want to destroy my legs, even though that wasn't a really fast pace to keep. I decided to do the warmup mile really slow, so I would have plenty of energy to go faster in the middle.
I started out definitely feeling really slow, especially since my legs were still hurting from Wednesday. Imagine my surprise when the first split was 10:24, and then the next one was 10:00. If I did mile 1, which should be my slowest mile in 10:12, then I should probably kick it up a bit for the rest. Which is exactly what I did. Besides the 3rd mile, every other split was under 10:00. I think the 3rd mile is mostly mental. Even though the elevation map shows that it clearly isn't the biggest or steepest hill, it seems like it is. Since I was pushing the pace, I kept telling myself that I only needed to keep it up until I hit 5 miles, then I could take it down a notch for my cooldown mile. Even though I tried to do that, I still kept up the same 9:30-9:40 pace, and ended with an average pace of 9:45 min/mile. Not too bad for just a steady run.
Oh and btw, the weather was amazing. 55 and sunny is seriously my ideal running temperature. After I got back from my run, I showered and ate breakfast, and then went to the UVA/Notre Dame basketball game - go Hoos! The first half was disappointing, but we came back and dominated during the second half. This season has been an exciting one for us!
Sunday, February 22nd:
I was REALLY nervous about this run. 11 miles is a lot of running! My legs were really sore from the whole week of working out, and from the run the day before. Joey planned out a run for me, according to the specifications I told him. I didn't want any huge ups or downs, which meant I didn't want to run by the river. I wanted to have bathrooms/water easily accessible, especially once I was about halfway through. In the end, Joey came up with two loops, so I would pass back by our place about halfway through. I stashed a water bottle in the bushes outside our place, and decided to stop at that point to have a few pieces of GU, drink some water, stretch. The second loop was exactly what I did on Saturday, which made it a bit easier psychologically.
Unlike my run on Saturday, when I felt that I was moving really slowly at first, I actually was. In the end, the average pace wasn't all that bad. The three splits that were over 11 minute pace were all really hilly. I tried to pick it up at the end, and once I was done, felt completely drained. Joey had a glass of ice water waiting for me, and made me breakfast once I showered. Nothing like scrambled eggs, sauteed veggies, and incredible french toast made with the best cinnamon raisin bread ever, to make you feel better :)
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Week Total:
Tuesday: 6 miles (treadmill)
Thursday: 5 miles (outside)
Saturday: 6.02 miles (outside)
Sunday: 11.01 miles (outside)
Weekly Total: 28.03 miles
One last thing - Joey requested another batch of those delicious dinner rolls I made on his birthday. This time we didn't have any green onions so we just upped the other herbs. I was nervous at first, since it required a lot of extra flour compared to the first time I made them. This could be because Joey measured the flour last time, or maybe their air was more humid this second time. Either way, it ended up working out really well - the total dough weighed less than an ounce less than the first time I made it, and the resulting rolls were just awesome.
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I started this week off right - with yoga. I've been saying for a while that I want to start doing yoga at home. I finally went through my pinned yoga sequences, and picked a few to try. I picked two that were listed as good for running, one for abs, and one that was restorative. I went through a lot of sequences that I didn't use, some that had poses I wasn't familiar with, and some that didn't fully describe how to get from one pose to the next.
I printed out the full sequence for all of them, which included a large image of the pose, as well as a little description of how to get from one pose to the next. The text wasn't very large, which was the first problem. I am used to following a yoga instructor, who will give the necessary directions, and I found that I kept having to refer to the text to see what to do. In some cases, I just came out of the pose and found my way into the next.
I think that I may try to find some videos or podcasts, so I can get some verbal cues, while I'm trying to refresh my yoga skills (whatever skills I had after a few months of it, at least). I did like the sequences that I did, and I think that they may be easier to get through the next time I try.
Complement Your Cardio: Long and Lean Yoga Flow: Down Dog, Warrior 1, Rotated Side Angle, Reverse Warrior, Half Moon, Bound Extended Side Angle, Wide-Legged Forward Bend, Open Lizard, Pigeon, Seated Spinal Twist, Half Wheel, Savasana
Lengthen and Strengthen Your Runner's Legs: Three-Legged Dog, Extended Table Top, Intense Side Stretch, Revolved Triangle, Rotated Side Angle, Reverse Warrior, Bent Standing Split, Burning Lunge, Open Lizard, Pigeon, Camel, Reclined Hero (couldn't do this one), Wide Straddle, Butterfly
Flatten Your Belly with Yoga: Down Dog, Arching Three-Legged Dog, Knee Up Plank, Warrior 1, Warrior 3, One-Legged Four-Limbed Staff, Side Plank, Balancing Star, Quarter Dog, Child's Pose, Boat, Intense East, Extended Squat, Crow (my favorite)
Seated Relaxing Yoga Sequence: Extended Wide Squat, Happy Baby, Figure Four, Reclining Twist, Child's Pose, Pigeon, Sphinx, Head to Knee Pose, Wide Straddle, Plow (I don't like doing these), Savasana
One weird thing - once I got home from lab, I was looking at facebook, and saw that there was something on my page that I had apparently pinned 40 minutes ago on pinterest. I knew I hadn't (it was pretty obvious because it wasn't food or exercise), so I went onto pinterest to check it out. It told me that something was fishy with my recent activity (I'm glad it caught it so quickly), and I had to reset my password. I took care of that, and then when I went to check it out, I saw that someone had changed my profile information, and had created a new board and pinned one thing to it. So strange! Hopefully it's all worked out, but it makes me worry about the security of the site, and I really hope someone didn't figure out my password. Plus, who would want to hack onto a pinterest account, and why??
Tuesday, February 18th:
This was another hard interval treadmill workout. The original plan was to do something similar to what I've done before - 1 mile warmup (5.7mph), 4 miles at goal pace (average of 6.1mph), 1 mile cooldown (5.7mph). I asked Joey what he recommended, thinking he was just going to play around with the distance, since the actual half marathon training said to do a 2 mile warmup, and 5 miles at goal pace. He then asked what I was hoping to get out of the training program - to do the 10 miles, or to get faster. I had to think about it for a minute, but then answered that I wanted to be able to run 10 miles comfortably, that was my main goal, but I also wanted to get a bit faster. He suggested that I increase the pace during the 4 miles - that instead of staying comfortable at 6.1, that I should try to keep it between 6.2 and 6.3. Not a huge difference, but enough to make the run more difficult.
I decided to do what I had done on Sunday, with going up and down every quarter mile, just to change it up. In order to keep my average pace between 6.2 and 6.3, I ranged from 6.1 to 6.4. The last mile was definitely hard, since I was climbing up in pace the whole time. I did my warmup and cooldown at 5.6, to make it a bit easier. While it was a hard run, I finished the whole thing! I'm hoping that it's just one more thing that will make me a better runner.
Wednesday, February 19th:
I did my first kettle bell workout in weeks! Literally, it's been four weeks. And oh man did it hurt. I did the workout with Joey, which of course meant that it was going to be crazy hard.
We did two century-style sets, but went through them in different ways. The first set, we did it as a "you go, I go" workout, so we had built-in breaks. I managed to go fast enough for Joey's liking, and we went through for a total of 5 times! We took a 10 minute break to get water, etc, and then went into the second set. With this set, we each went at our own pace, and tried to do as many times through as we could in 20 minutes. We were both in the middle of a set at 20 minutes, and finished in just about 23 minutes - me with 3 times through, Joey with 4 times through. Let's just say that set #2 was WAY more difficult than set #1.
After we finished with the KB sets, we each did some extra things. Joey did some tabata sets with squats and pullups (I think). I decided to get back into my assisted pullups. I basically had to start from scratch. I started with the assistance at 90lbs, and barely got 8 pullups. My grip must have been giving out, since I kept slipping. I rested for 2 minutes, then moved the assistance to 100lbs and just barely did 10. Then I rested another 2 minutes, and did another 8 at 100lbs. Hopefully it won't take me too long to get back to where I was - I think I was at 60lbs last summer (for 3 sets of 10), and was getting close to being able to do one unassisted.
Then I decided that I should do some wall sits, since I read that they're good for runners. I did 3 wall sits, for 30 seconds each. My quads were actually shaking, by the end of each one. Joey had to help pull me out of them, since I couldn't stand on my own.
Thursday, February 20th:
EVERYTHING hurt today. Everything. I'm so glad that my run was just supposed to be an easy 5 mile run. The weather has gotten much nicer this week - it's been at least 50 every day since Tuesday. A lot of the snow has melted, so I took a chance and went on my run outside. There were some areas where I had to jump off the sidewalk into the street, where there was a patch of snow, but it was mostly okay. My legs were just so sore and tight, I moved really slowly in the first couple miles. I started to loosen up toward the end, but once I got home, everything tightened up.
This was another run that we modified slightly. The plan was to do 1 mile warmup, 4 miles at marathon-marathon+30sec pace, then 1 mile cooldown. Joey said that I should try to do the 4 miles at goal pace + 15-20 sec, meaning about 10:15-10:20 pace. That I certainly didn't need to really push the pace, but that I should try to do it a little faster than my easy slow pace. For some reason, that made me nervous. I knew I would be running 11 miles the next day, and I didn't want to destroy my legs, even though that wasn't a really fast pace to keep. I decided to do the warmup mile really slow, so I would have plenty of energy to go faster in the middle.
I started out definitely feeling really slow, especially since my legs were still hurting from Wednesday. Imagine my surprise when the first split was 10:24, and then the next one was 10:00. If I did mile 1, which should be my slowest mile in 10:12, then I should probably kick it up a bit for the rest. Which is exactly what I did. Besides the 3rd mile, every other split was under 10:00. I think the 3rd mile is mostly mental. Even though the elevation map shows that it clearly isn't the biggest or steepest hill, it seems like it is. Since I was pushing the pace, I kept telling myself that I only needed to keep it up until I hit 5 miles, then I could take it down a notch for my cooldown mile. Even though I tried to do that, I still kept up the same 9:30-9:40 pace, and ended with an average pace of 9:45 min/mile. Not too bad for just a steady run.
Oh and btw, the weather was amazing. 55 and sunny is seriously my ideal running temperature. After I got back from my run, I showered and ate breakfast, and then went to the UVA/Notre Dame basketball game - go Hoos! The first half was disappointing, but we came back and dominated during the second half. This season has been an exciting one for us!
Sunday, February 22nd:
I was REALLY nervous about this run. 11 miles is a lot of running! My legs were really sore from the whole week of working out, and from the run the day before. Joey planned out a run for me, according to the specifications I told him. I didn't want any huge ups or downs, which meant I didn't want to run by the river. I wanted to have bathrooms/water easily accessible, especially once I was about halfway through. In the end, Joey came up with two loops, so I would pass back by our place about halfway through. I stashed a water bottle in the bushes outside our place, and decided to stop at that point to have a few pieces of GU, drink some water, stretch. The second loop was exactly what I did on Saturday, which made it a bit easier psychologically.
Unlike my run on Saturday, when I felt that I was moving really slowly at first, I actually was. In the end, the average pace wasn't all that bad. The three splits that were over 11 minute pace were all really hilly. I tried to pick it up at the end, and once I was done, felt completely drained. Joey had a glass of ice water waiting for me, and made me breakfast once I showered. Nothing like scrambled eggs, sauteed veggies, and incredible french toast made with the best cinnamon raisin bread ever, to make you feel better :)
Week Total:
Tuesday: 6 miles (treadmill)
Thursday: 5 miles (outside)
Saturday: 6.02 miles (outside)
Sunday: 11.01 miles (outside)
Weekly Total: 28.03 miles
One last thing - Joey requested another batch of those delicious dinner rolls I made on his birthday. This time we didn't have any green onions so we just upped the other herbs. I was nervous at first, since it required a lot of extra flour compared to the first time I made them. This could be because Joey measured the flour last time, or maybe their air was more humid this second time. Either way, it ended up working out really well - the total dough weighed less than an ounce less than the first time I made it, and the resulting rolls were just awesome.
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