Running Schedule

Right now it looks like this (anything not "outdoors" is on a treadmill):

Tuesday: Long Outdoor Run
Wednesday: 2-mile run; strength train or yoga
Thursday: Sprint Intervals (abt 2 miles), other
Friday: 1-mile run/cross-training or maybe yoga
Saturday: Long Run
Sunday: Hill Intervals
Monday: Strength train, yoga, or other

Right now I have a DVD from Netflix called "Yoga For Beginners" that is halfway decent but I'm going to be sending it back on Friday so I don't really know what I'm going to do after that one is done. I like the yoga a lot but it doesn't provide any strength training and to be honest, if I don't have a workout DVD I've found I'm a little hopeless in trying to do that stuff myself. I need to buy Minna Lessig's "Tank Top Arms" video - I kept it for 4 weeks and really enjoyed it. And saw results! :)P

Also, to be honest, this schedule I just posted is likely to change. I'm going to do it this week because I've been upping my weekly mileage; this should get me up to around 15.5 miles total, which is a high for me, and once I'm up to that I'm going to scale back on the running for a while and work on other things for a couple of weeks. So starting next week the revised schedule should be:

Tu: Long Outdoor Run (I'm keepin' that)
W, Th, F: 1-mile run, then either x-training or strength training or whatever is handy
Sat: Long Run
Su, M: Whatever is handy; Sun will also have a 1-mile run but not Monday.

I'll work that out when I get to it. I am hoping to do a couple of cardio DVDs like the ones that incorporate dance moves :D And I'll probably be using the elliptical even though I swear to God that thing wants to kill me. One way or another. So, once I'm doing that routine the mileage for the week will probably be around 11.5 or so.

When I say "Long Run" I generally mean "As long as I can go" which isn't terribly long... I did 4 miles yesterday, broken into pieces. Saturdays are going to be unbroken and I'm going to work on extending my time. My first goal for this Saturday is 3.5 miles but I think what I'll probably do is run 5K or so (longer if I feel like I can), walk a minute or so, then do whatever mileage I still need to get up to 3.5. Then I'll just see about upping that bit by bit. Hey, it worked to get me to 5K :)

***

Meanwhile! I did get out on my long run yesterday and I'm really pleased with the results, although I still didn't do the full 5K without stopping. But it was effing hot and so I don't care.

I realized that I'd probably be incredibly stupid to go out running for three miles without taking water with me so I took my water bottle from work even though I have no way to carry it while running. It was really, really annoying to keep shifting it the entire time I ran, but I was really glad to have it. Yesterday was the hottest day I've run so far. I made it perhaps about 2.75 miles before stopping - I crossed the street! (I don't remember if I went into detail here about what that means, but it means I made my goal for not stopping) - then walked for perhaps a minute or so before finishing off the last of the third mile. I didn't have a watch with me so I have no idea what time I managed, but I was going for distance over speed anyway.

Anyway, from here on out everything had to be estimated because I had no pedometer or watch; I measure by the signs that mark every half mile on this trail, and I did a lot of odd distances the rest of the way. So I felt I had probably run about 2.8 or so out of the first 3 miles. I walked another half mile or so for full recovery and then ran for a couple of minutes, with the assumption that that got me up to an honest 3.0. It also got me to about 3.5 miles or so in terms of full distance travelled. Then I ran about .7 miles or so, including a couple of fartleks (isn't that the greatest word? Yes), stopped at the half-mile sign, walked for perhaps three or four minutes, and ran the rest of the way to the last sign. I think that last one covered about .3 miles so I'm saying I made my 4-mile goal!

I'm going to work on evening it out: First of all I still want to finish that third mile without stopping. After that I'm going to go ahead and give myself a while to recover and try to get the next mile into one solid block at the end. Then I can try shortening the distance between, and start the final run earlier and earlier while extending the first one longer and longer. And then I'll be ready for my 8K in September! :)

So feeling good about things right now. Which is nice. :)