cheryl

Treadmill run.

The group ran repeats around Canterwood and Rustic Roads.  We all kind of got split up, so I ran mainly with Nancy R.  My times were all around 4:40 going up Canterwood and 3:40 going down Rustic Roads--these times are approximate, but I think pretty close.

Today was TOSH day--treadmill sprints and form work.  Once again, it was quite difficult.  She wanted me to run at 10.5mph on about a 5% incline for two minutes.  Well, I wasn't about able to do that.  I made it to 1:02, which I thought was pretty good, running a sub 6 minute pace on an incline.  I've decided I need to get stronger, so I'm going to try and run hill sprints every day for a while to see what that does for me.  I went home and ran a little more on my treadmill, then I went to basketball practice and had fun running there.

We met by Kelli's and Scott's house today.  I like going there because there are hills everywhere you look.  Kelli led us thru a run that took us up some pretty good hills, then we finished with a fairly easy run back to the church.  It was a good workout.

Later, I ran some hill sprints on my treadmill; I have a goal of running hill sprints on the treadmill every day for a while hoping to build up some strength.

Then for the fun evening.  I play church basketball on a stake team that is mainly composed of middle-aged housewives (sorry, I don't know how else to describe it) and some younger women.  Basically all of us just play for fun and exercise.  I don't think any of us have had any real training in basketball fundamentals.  Usually we play teams similar to us.  Well, tonight we played a team composed of younger looking women (probably not many over 30), and several of them looked like they had probably played high school ball.  We were no match for them.  However, I had fun because it was a very up tempo game, like a track meet, non-stop running back and forth.  I felt good because I was able to keep up with them and run the court as well as anyone there.   One of the refs even complimented me on my "hustle."   It was a great workout.  Besides losing by twenty points, I wouldn't mind playing basketball like that every week.

More hill sprint work.  I was pretty tired after yesterday, so I took things pretty easy.

I thought I had a basketball game at 10:00 this morning, so I didn't want to run long for fear of wearing out my legs.  Then I found it was cancelled, so I just ran some treadmill hill sprints plus some longer intervals.  I enjoyed that better than a long run.

I did some uphill running on the treadmill.

The group met by the steep, short hill in Glenmoor.  Peggy lead the workout.  She had us do a .6 and a .9 interval, both of which included that hill.  We began running right up the hill.  I can tell I am weak on hills because I immediately fall behind everyone as we go up, then I'm (sometimes) able to catch up when it turns flat or downhill.  I got twisted around in directions and thought we had taken a wrong turn somewhere and were at the temple hill on 40th W., so I slowed down thinking I didn't want to run that thing.  Then I noticed we were right back where we were supposed to be, but by that time the group had taken off to run the .6 interval again, so I just ran up that hill a couple of times until they returned.  Then I ran the .9 thing, felt hard until after the hill, then managed to run pretty well.  I wasn't thrilled with how I did on this workout, it told me that I need to get stronger so I can run hills better.

They called this a 10K, but I think it may have been a little short.  I wish race directors would measure things accurately so we can compare times from one 10K to another.  Oh well, it was fun anyway.  I ran this in 2004 (when I think the distance was accurate) in 47:59.  In 2005, when I think they may have shortened the course, and it was the same as today (though I can't remember for sure), my time was 44:54.  So I was faster today, which made me happy.  Even if you add on 4 minutes for a short course, I would still be happy with my time today. 

This is the first 10K I've run in over a year.  It's my first race since SGM (I guess we call that a race).  I went in not really knowing where I was fitness wise, and was just hoping to be at least in the 48 minute range.  My goal was to run this at a "comfortably hard" pace, with the emphasis on comfortable.  Not necessarily taking it easy, but keeping my upper body relaxed, always feeling pretty good and never feeling like I was dying.  This race was just to show me where I am, not to kill myself going all out.  So that's what I did.  Whenever I felt my shoulders tensing, I made myself relax.  Whenever I felt too uncomfortable, I made myself relax.  When I finished I felt pretty good, like maybe I could have run it again if I really wanted to.   One thing frustrating was I brought my garmin but I couldn't get it to turn on.  It does that occasionally, I charge it the night before, then for some reason it won't work until I charge it again.  This is one race I could have used it because the mile markers were messed up and I had no idea what pace I was running.

A highlight of the race was finally getting to meet the famous Michelle Lowry.  I ran into her after the race, and we had a nice chat.  She was very friendly.  She won for the women!  It looks like she is back.  Overall, the race was a very nice experience.