Work recently added an itty, bitty gym, but it's a gym nonetheless. The one awesome perk is that a trainer runs the gym, and nobody is really ever there. This came at the perfect time, because the YMCA and I had to break up. The rate for a single person had gone up to $57/month. One of many reasons I feel society forces us to get married. The rate for a family was $89 for 2-1,000 people in a given family unit. As a single woman I cannot afford to subsidize everyone else's membership. The gym became obsolete during training, anyway.
The trainer at work met with me when they opened to assess my body fat, fitness and flexibility. She created a weight training routine for me, as well as a running plan to help me beat my last half time (2:33, which shouldn't be hard to beat). In 6 weeks I had gone down 2% in body fat, and started to run by her plan. By the way, going down 2% in 6 weeks was apparently a good thing! I guess when I told her to get rid of the "jiggle", she listened.
When she showed me my schedule of runs, I laughed. I would still be running 4 days a week which was good. Here's the funny part, she included things like tempo run, interval run, lactate threshold, race pace. Things I had only ever seen in runners magazines- and reserved for serious runners. After researching and figuring some of this out, here's my take on these runs:
- Tempo run- warm up, run for a set time at your threshold pace, cool down. For me this means running at 8:38pace (and hopefully not vomiting at the end)
- Easy/long run- this is what I considered to be "my pace", apparently not after running my fastest mile in 8:30. My so called pace of 10-11ish is considered easy- and is only reserved for long runs. This made me sad, and made me miss my marathon longs runs- just enjoying life!
- Intervals- warm up, sprint a certain distance, regain breathing for a minute, repeat (usually 4-6 times), cool down. I must say these are my favorite, I feel like a Kenyan Olympian, (i'm sure the visual is not as awesome) and I don't end up with a medal.
- Race pace run- Based on my mile time, I should be able to complete a half or less in a 9:15 pace (or less). This again, made me laugh. So I tried it. I've only had one run so far at race pace- and I was shocked when I actually did it. I ran 4 miles in 37 minutes. Maybe there is a method to this madness.
After running a marathon I thought I'd run out of blog ideas. I'm such a newbie runner, I'm sure I could continue this for the life of my running adventures and always have something to say.
My lesson of the week (which I shouldn't have had to learn):
Running without socks, in rain, with orthotics in shoes, ends badly. 4 blood blisters, badly.
Happy Running!! :)
