Let the Games Begin

Today is the start of my training plan for the Lake Stevens 70.3 in August and since Monday is going to be my OFF day I was able to sleep in this morning. I’ll be running after work today and every Monday for the next few weeks so I won’t actually have an official rest day until after the Eugene Half Marathon in early May.

Last week I took it pretty easy (aka I was lazy) and didn’t get in any yardage at the pool. I only got in a couple short rides on the trainer as well. However, I didn’t slack on my running and had some great weekday runs capped off with a really good run on Saturday. Before I get into the weekend run, here are the stats for the mid-week miles:

Tuesday – Seven miles, 53:19, 7:37 AP
Wednesday – Seven miles, 55:50, 7:58 AP
Friday – Four miles, 33:47, 8:27 AP

On Saturday I had 12 miles on the schedule and I wanted to run two warm up, four at 7:30 AP, four in the 7-teens, then two as a cool down. I really wanted to run the second four mile leg in the low 7’s but I was a little freaked out by that goal so I settled for something in the 7:15 range. The weather was great – high 40’s and partly cloudy, by the time I was done it was in the mid-50’s and sunny. I kept it easy for the first two miles and about halfway through the second mile I started picking up the pace so that the transition to my first faster mile wasn’t so abrupt.

Miles one and two: 8:19 and 7:47

I settled into a nice relaxed pace which felt easy but fast. As the miles went by I was really happy to see how consistent I was running. My paces used to be all over the place on most of my solo runs but lately I have been able to keep them all within a few seconds of each other; Saturday was no exception:

Miles three to six: 7:31, 7:32, 7:29, and 7:36

I ate my Vanilla Bean Gu right before the turn around so that I didn’t have to mess around with it when I started picking up the pace. The next four miles were tough but once again I was able to keep a consistent pace and get them all done; and they were all in the low 7’s!

Miles seven to ten: 7:04, 7:02, 7:06, 6:59

I slowed down to run out the last two miles nice and easy and when I was done I took my time stretching out. After that I blended up a recovery drink which was a little over a cup of chocolate milk, about 12 ice cubes, a tablespoon of peanut butter, and a heaping tablespoon of vanilla protein powder from Whole Foods. I forgot how good recovery shakes can be.

Miles 11 and 12: 7:50 and 8:00

Total Run: 12 miles, 1:30:19, 7:31 AP

While drinking my recovery shake I knocked out my push ups and am happy to say that I’m finally confident enough to move onto week five of the plan. Week four was pretty tough for me but after repeating it four times I was able to complete all the sets.

This week I ran a total of 30 miles, rode the bike for an hour on the trainer, and did 423 push ups.

Sunday we drove out to the coast and spent a fun day hanging out, checking out the beach and the ship wreck at Fort Stevens, and enjoying the drive along the Columbia and the ocean. I’m sure Jen will post some pictures of the trip on her blog.

Two weeks till the Race for the Roses Half Marathon where I hope to pace Jen to a PR. She has been having some great workouts lately and I am confident that if we follow the plan of taking it easy in the first part of the race to bank some energy she will be able to push hard through the second half and set a new PR.