A Numbers Game

Well today's workout was fun! I mapped out a new course of about 3.5 miles on mapmyrun.com and then ventured out to run it. Mostly I was testing to see if I could run a 5K in under 30 minutes - guess what? My total loop was 32, so based on what I estimate to run almost half a mile, I ran a 28:30ish 5K. My avg for the 3.5 run total was 9:30, I'm happy with that. Now if I can just keep my avg to 9:30 or less when I run the next 10K distance....

An interesting thing about mapmyrun is that in the mapped route it looked like the road extended all the way to where I wanted to run - ha, when I got to a certain point I had to run past a blockade at the end of the road and onto dirt. Oh well, trail running is good practice, right? It has been so long since I've actually run on dirt and trails and grass, what a gigantic pain! It looks flat at first glance but it was so lumpy and I had to be careful about where I stepped while running. I have to say I prefer running on the side of the road or even on the sidewalk. I like track surfaces too as long as they aren't dirt tracks, but running on a track in my opinion is kind of boring like a treadmill. Part of the joy of running outside is the scenery and watching what you pass by... and enjoying how quickly you watch it fade away behind you =)

I'm feeling good today, I want to share it. You can do anything, just believe it. I can, and I do.

Runners are Crazy....

I did it now, not only have I not posted a blog here in almost two years, I agreed to run a race for the first time since I was 18 - that's 18 years. Some people raise a child from birth to college in that amount of time!

Oddly enough, it hasn't been all that tough getting back into it. I enjoy running once I get going, the tough part for me some days is making myself get away from the desk and start. I also used to consider myself a distance runner because I ran cross country and the distance events in track, but technically my longest races were around a 5K, with the shorter trail runs around 2.1 and of course the 1600.

I'm training for the SoCal Ragnar relay in April and I chose my leg this morning, and NONE of my legs are shorter than a 5K lol. I think I'll be okay and I'm pretty excited, but I have no true indication how things will go because I've never run a race like this before. In reality it's going to be almost like running a 5K and two 10Ks, each one separated by maybe 5-6 hours. I've never run a half marathon, never run a marathon, and the last 12K I ran was - like I said, 18 years ago.

I'm going to include some of my training runs here so I have something to look back on - when I first decided I was in and signed up a month ago, I think I was running around 2 miles a workout, 2-4 days a week. I mostly ran on the treadmill at the gym and I was running around 12 min miles. I also do some lifting and core but not a ton... probably less than an hour total a week. I've since decided I like running outside better and I mapped a route/loop near my house that's about 2.25 miles. I've been timing my runs and plugging them into cool running's pace calc, and outside I run anywhere between 9:32 mile avg down to an 8:53 mile avg. I'm planning to map a longer route so I can just run one long one instead of having to do my 2.25 mile loop three times. Today's run was 9:23, yesterday I skipped, Thursday's was 9:20, Wednesday was 8:58, Tuesday was 8:53, Monday was 9:18. I haven't figured out why they are all so different, Tuesday's was my longest run, almost 7 miles. Monday was 4.5, all the rest was 2.25 except for Thurs, I ran a total of 5 but split into two workouts. I think I need to go find a training program for 10Ks or half marathons to see how they break up the mileage and add it in week by week.