Day One Of The February Butt Kicking

I had a great run this afternoon at Otto Armleder Park. I planned on tackling the hills of the Five Mile Trail, but it's still just a teensy bit too cold for me to feel comfortable doing that on my own. And I'm a bit out of practice. But oh well, my slackertude led to a pretty great accomplishment.

Here are the stats for my run according to my iMapMyRun app.

First mile
Time - 11:50
Pace - 11:47 min/mile
Speed - 5.1 mph

Second mile
Time - 25:37
Pace - 12:48 min/mile
Speed - 4.7 mph

Frankly, I'm a bit shocked at my pace and speed. That's fast for me! When I last ran Juilfs, I was lucky to do pull off a 16 min/mile pace.

There are a few things to consider, though.

1. I didn't include my warm up walk in this. I waited until I was ready to run to start tracking.
2. The wind was at my back during the first mile.
3. The wind was in my face during the second mile.
4. Either the markers on the path are inaccurate or the app is. My app put me at 1 mile about 0.05 mile before the markers did. Just something to consider.

So anyway, great run today and I'm doing another one tomorrow with Caitlin. Yay!

This is just for fun ...

After my run this afternoon, I came home to make the filling for the chocolate chip whoopie pies I made for a party tonight. For future reference, melted chocolate plus marshmallow fluff plus a little butter looks like ... well ... be your own judge.

Whoopie poos!

Another Positive Post ... And A Few Pics

Are you totally sick of my gushy positive posts yet? Well kiss it, because this is another one.

I had another GREAT run today and I'm feeling so hopeful about this whole "project" of mine.

Tuesday's run at Veterans felt good, but I didn't have a way to really measure my progress. Today I returned to Juilfs to see how I'm doing. Well, I finished my normal two laps (one mile each) with 3:10 left on the clock.

For the win!

My last run at Juilfs was last Tuesday and I finished with 2:36 on the clock. So, whoa, big improvement in a short period of time, I'd say. I think I need to up my target of 2 minutes left. Seems a bit weak now, right?

I've been trying to run a little bit -- a really litte bit -- faster, and also continue running for about, oh, 3 to 5 seconds after the walk alarm goes off. That adds up I guess. Oh, and the running down hill thing is way fun. =)

Anyway, I'm not going to drag this out today, but I do have some pictures from Juilfs. I'm continually impressed with the quality photos I can take with my iPhone!

The best playground ever!

From the top of Beast Hill. I generally run coming toward the camera.


This is where I start running. Look how pretty the sky was tonight!


AHHHHH! GIANT SHADOW MONSTER!
BOOM BOOM BOOM!

Wedgie Picker

Hey, hey, hey! So, I had a FANTASTIC run today and I'm so friggin' excited! What a pleasant follow-up to Sunday's monster run, right?

The weather was perfect: cold, sunny, no/very little humidity.

I was feeling good, too, and was definitely ready to stretch my legs out.

The scenery was beautiful: green and springy, and I followed a very fast-walking wedgie picker for the second mile. I swear he picked his wedgie at least twice on that lap and played with his underwear in between picks. No, he wasn't beautiful scenery, but he made me laugh out loud every time he did it. (Don't worry, my mid-workout laughs sound like dry heaves, so he was clueless.)

Anyway, I was worried at first because I started walking at a quicker pace than I usually do, and my shins started cramping pretty much right away. Never good. Then, I caught a peek of an old softball teammate (HI MICHELLE!) and that just made me happy.

Ahhh, then the best part: I ran full throttle down Beast Hill's sister, Loch Ness Monster Hill.

Weeeee!

My tactic until today had been to run down that hill on my toes to help stretch out my shins. But today I felt like running fast, so I let gravity do the work and let it loose. Way. Fun.

Oh, and one more thing. Seeing as how my last two runs haven't been exactly fun, and those last two runs were "backwards" runs at Juilfs, I turned my path back around and went the "right" way.

I'm never going backwards again.

I'm happy to discover that the backwards tactic could have been the reason for my poopy exercises, and not just my lack of progress. Whew!

Lastly and most importantly, I finished the two miles with 2:36 on the clock!!! That's 36 seconds faster than my personal best so far.

WOOOOHOOOO!

If my math's correct, that brings me to a 13:42 pace.

I feel victorious today. I'm fired up. I'm going to celebrate by wrapping up my third pass at Week 2 -- and starting Week 2 again next time I run. Ha! Yeah, I still feel like I'm going to die when I'm at the end of my 90-second run, so I'll do this week a few more times until that feeling passes. I will say that I think I could do with shorter walking/recovery intervals. I'm catching my breath a lot quicker now. Another victory! Yippee!

Okay, I need to get off here, so let's see ... next run? I'd love to say Thursday, but I don't want to commit because I'm in the home stretch of moving out of the old apartment. If I'm in a crunch on Thursday, I'll pass up running. If I'm in good shape, I'm all over it.

Quick Update: A Setback in Week 2

Good afternoon.

Yes, that's right, it's a Thursday afternoon and I'm blogging ... because I'm not at work. I took two days off to move. Yes, that's right, still moving. Yuu-uu-uuck. I just took a brief lunch break and thought I'd take a few moments to ensure you all that I did run this morning as planned.

An interesting thing happened, and I'm not entirely sure why. I finished with a full minute on the clock, whereas last time I ran this workout (Week 2), I had a full two minutes on the clock. The difference between these two occurrences? I started the workout walking with someone else -- my mom.

Now, she's a slow walker, even by my standards (which is slow), but she walked quickly with me for the five-minute warm-up. I guess it wasn't quick enough and I didn't even realize that I might have been walking slower than usual. But, I'm thinking that's the main cause for my slowness. In fact, for a few of the running portions, I thought I was going quite fast.

Eh, whatever. It was gorgeous at the park today, so it was worth it.

One last thing. 'Tis the season for 5Ks, and I know I've brought it up before, but I need to decide if and when I can try one. Many of you offered great feedback on the kinds of runs I should try, and I defintely agree. I appreciate the advice too; I would never have thought to distinguish between a serious 5K and a fun one. But now that you've mentioned it, I know exactly what you all mean.

There's a 5K run/walk happening in my neighborhood, literally a baseball's throw away from where I live now -- okay a really LONG baseball's throw. It's at the end of May and the route is quite hilly, so I'm a little reluctant. There are also a few throughout Cincinnati that I'd like to take a shot at: the Reggae Run (organized by one of my professors), the Reds 5K, and the Hyde Park Blast. Basically, anything with a party at the end is going to be a safe bet, I'm guessing.

Okay, I must get back to packing and moving. Forgive the short and icky post; I'll do better next time. Check back soon for my feature on BBW* exercise.

*See the asterisk at the end of my last post.