8 Miles

I registered for the Thanksgiving Point half marathon (April 30) yesterday.  It is official now.  I have 9 weeks to train.

I will be registering for the Utah Valley half marathon (June 11th) in a couple of weeks.  That one will be an easier race because the entire thing is downhill!  The Thanksgiving Point race is down, then up on a gentle grade.  Even gentle, it seems brutal to start going down and end going up.  However, I look forward to jogging through the beautiful gardens at the height of tulip season.

Erik and Deanna gave me a beginner's 10 week training schedule that they also plan to follow when the 10 week pre-UV half marathon hits.  When I first got the schedule, I thought I was behind in my training for the Thanksgiving Point race, so I moved ahead to week 4 on the schedule, which called for Mon. 3 mi., Wed. 5 mi., Thurs. 3 mi., and Saturday... 8 miles!

Before starting this, I had been averaging 5 miles on my treadmill workouts, so I figured this would be an acceptable place to start.  I have to say that the training is going very well!  Before this week I would never have imagined myself jogging such great distances!

I am still mostly running in the gym.  It is often too cold or too wet outside.  I know I could tough that out (I do have cold weather gear), but I don't have a reliable method of clocking the mileage, yet, so I prefer indoor running.  I am no longer using the treadmills, however.  I see a number of problems with the treadmills. 

1. Most of them have a maximum time limit of 60 minutes.
2. They are very cushioned and shock absorbed, so the training would not be as effective or 'real world'.
3. They are often either broken down or all in use.
4. And finally, I lose motivation on a treadmill.  It is hard to get a good rhythm going.  Each time a song ends, I tend to step off the tread and rest while waiting for the new song to start.  I don't do that in 'real world' jogging.

I jog on the indoor track.  There are four lanes.  The inside lanes are meant to be for walking, and the outside lanes are for jogging and are ramped on the corners.  There's always room for me on the track, even though I get frustrated sometimes with the lack of parental supervision going on at times.

Saturday is a good day for using the gym, though.  Not many people are there.  I maintain a steady pace that helps me count the laps and chew up the miles.  The lane I jog in measures 13 laps/mi., so here is my routine;

• 5 laps at 5 mi./hr
• 1 lap walk/recover
• 3 laps at 5 mi./hr.
• 1 lap walk/recover
• 2 laps at 5 mi./hr.
• 1 lap walk/recover
• Take a drink and start over on the next mile

So, you can see, 10 out of 13 laps are jogging.  It works REALLY WELL!

My pace is slow and steady.  I watch people come and go.  Most people arrive, blast around the track for a lap or three, then go their way again.  I wonder if they feel pity for the plump, middle aged lady just chugging along in a slow jog?  Guaranteed they wouldn't feel that way if they knew I had been at it for over an hour and was on the downward side of my sixth MILE, not lap!

I completed 8 miles in 1 hour and 43 minutes.  Mile 7 was the hardest.  Surprisingly, mile 8 felt great and it took me a moment to realize that I was done after the final lap (that I jogged rather than walking)!  I felt like I could keep going!

That's pretty incredible!  I didn't, though.  I knew better than to push it too far.  I'm not even all that sore today, the day after.

I did discover that I was way off in calculating which week in the training I should be on.  Last week should have been week 1, not week 4.  Oops. 

No worries, though.  I just plan to repeat week 4 this week, then do 2 weeks at the week 5 level, and 2 weeks on week 6.  That should get me back on track and much stronger than if I stepped back my workout.

Now what I really need is a decent pair of running shoes!  That is scheduled for next weekend.