First Speed workout!

Yesterday my friend and I did our three miles as a fartlek. For those of you who don't know, fartlek is a sweedish word for "speed play". It consists of segments of fast running and segments of jogging for various amounts of time. Our schedule was:

10 min warm up
0:30 Hard 
1:30 Easy 
0:30 Hard 
1:15 Easy 
0:30 Hard 
1:00 Easy 
0:30 Hard 
0:45 Easy 
0:30 Hard 
0:30 Easy 
0:30 Hard 
0:15 Easy 
0:30 Hard 
10 min cool down

With this schedule, the rest time decreases by increments of 15 seconds and is called a Gerschler Fartlek. Often people repeat the middle part several times, but we only needed to run three miles so we only did one set.

I didn't turn on my tracker by accident so it won't show up in the chart with quite as much information as usual. Also, I'm really slow right now!!! :( But that is why we are doing the speed workouts. It is awesome how patient my running buddy is! She is faster than me but doesn't mind slowing down to my pace.

I have been running I promise!

Hey guys!
So it looks like I haven't posted in a while but if you check the little chart at the top of the blog I have been tracking my runs!!

I did my first real long run this past Saturday and it was 8 miles in the humid Ohio summer. We slightly modified our program because neither my buddy or I ran the 7 mile run we had scheduled on 7/11. So do avoid jumping 4 miles in one run, we switched it from 9 miles to 8.

We ran roughly a 9:40 min/mile pace and took a few rests. I really want to get that down to a 9:10 pace sometime if at all possible because I would LOVE it if we could finish in roughly 4 hours. So we are going to do a speed workout tomorrow! I hate speed workouts! But much like vegetables, they are good for you. :)

I love my running buddy, she makes it so easy for me! Last week we were supposed to run 3 miles on Thursday and I was super unmotivated because I had a stressful and exhausting day. But she drove to my house at 7:30 pm because I told her I needed the motivation. (She has less difficulty motivating herself so it was definitely just for my benefit). What a great buddy!

Anyways, today I am doing an exercise class to maintain my muscle strength and burn some calories!

Strong start but now slacking

I ran five miles last Thursday and Saturday with my medical school friend. It was really good! On Friday I ran a mile with my boyfriend because he is trying to start running again and I want to support him in that. On Monday and Tuesday I was at a retreat where I got stung by a wasp. They put my on Benadryl because I have a family history of allergies. This made me so tired I just slept all day and couldn't get myself to go running. Tonight I plan on doing my 5 mile run and have just asked my friend to harass me about it so that I actually go. I am also going to buy some earbuds so that I can run with music when my friend is away. I really like the chart and spreadsheet I have added at the top of the page. The "description" part corresponds to the initials of the person I ran with. Feel free to comment so I know you are reading.
Thanks!
Zita

ANOTHER MARATHON!!!!

Hello!  I decided it's time for marathon #2!  This is partly due to a need for running motivation and also because I have often called myself a "marathoner" only to realize that this implies have run several marathons (which I haven't).  Lastly, for my previous marathon I purposely did not push myself to run fast during the marathon and even though l finished, l know I can do better.  Therefore, l signed up for the Towpath marathon which is in the near by national park!  It will be October 11th and I will be running with my friend! Yay!!!!!

 Anyways, my weekly schedule will be at the top and a count down on the side. Stay tuned!

DONE!

All right dudes, yesterday I ran the marathon! It was great! I honestly didn't even feel super tired! I had asked the pacer who I should run with and they suggest I run with the 4:30 finishing the group. My final the was 4 hours 26 min because I left the group in the last two miles. Last week I had squeezed in another 20 mile run on Wednesday before getting violently ill with a stomach flu for a few days.  This week I only got a four mile in on Wednesday.

I am ecstatic that I did it! I teared up a little crossing the finish line because I was so happy. :) I ran with two different people during the race, a woman who was in the Army Reserves and a man who worked for the military for his whole life.  My pacer has run over 200 marathons! The crowds were really fun, handing out water, candy,  fruit, paper towels, and even balloons!  I have so many memories and not enough time to write about them all!  I saw a blind runner with her helpers, I learned how to eat while running, listened to a talk by Hal Higdon (the person who wrote my training program), got a really cute headband for running, and so much more!  I also used the app called "Glympse" so that my friends and family could watch me finish.

Some cute headbands that were only $5 at the running expo.

Running past my family at mile 3.

 Running up to the finish!

 My family watching me finish using the tracker.

 Being sassy after the race!

 My boyfriend watched the second half of the race and meet me at the finish!

Thursday & Today

I did my run on Thursday. My Wednesday morning run just didn't happen.... :(. My run today was kind of a fail too. I asked my boyfriend to bike with me so that I could run through some of the "not so safe" neighborhoods. However, he had to use my bike (because his has a flat tire) and was miserable the whole time. I felt really bad that I had dragged him out to run with me, so after 11 miles, we went home. It was terribly windy but otherwise the weather was fairly nice. I have my 24 mile rescheduled for Wednesday and I think it will actually happen because after Monday, my schedule frees up quite a bit. So I can at least finish my training strong. I think if I do another marathon, I will find a training buddy with whom I can do my long runs. I would be much more disappointed in myself, but I know I could have finished my run today. Mostly it just sucks because everyone is asking me how my run went today, so I keep having to re-explain it.

Traveling

Last week I ran on Tuesday  and Thursday. I ran the correct distance each day. Wednesday and Sunday l didn't get a chance to because I was traveling. I ran yesterday but probably won't get a chance to today. I wanted to go this morning but couldn't get myself out of bed.  :(  Saturday it's my last long run! I'm getting a little disappointed in my current track record  so it's good that my training is almost over. I've learned that the middle of the week runs are much more likely to happen. I have missed very few Tuesday & Thursday runs. So next year I will try to plan my workouts for the middle of the day.