Summertime Running and a Training Plan

The day after my last final exam I decided to get the summer off to a great start. What better way to do this then to go for a run? So, on Saturday May 10th, at about 11:45 am, I set out for the 5K Home Loop. It was a good run all in all – beautiful blue sky, great songs on my Shuffle – the only problem was the extreme heat. It was 71 degrees when I walked out my front door and 82 degrees when I arrived back home! Wow! It’s not unusual at all for Oklahoma, but it certainly slowed me down: I completed 3.28 miles in 53:26 with an average pace of 16:17/mile. It definitely showed me what I already knew – I will have to become a morning person and get these runs out of the way much earlier in order to beat the heat.

Then, on Monday May 12th, B and I left for a very early morning flight to North Carolina, the first of our summer vacations, with all of our running gear in our luggage. We visited my brother, sister-in-law and my 6 month-old niece (who I hadn’t met yet) and had a really nice time. On Tuesday, I had a 2-mile run on my schedule and B had a 5-mile run to complete. These were our first runs in North Carolina and it was my first run on my training plan for Disneyland. Needless to say, I’m psyched. :)

I have coined this the “Snowglobe Run”, because the neighborhood where my brother and his family live seems kind of like a snowglobe – all the houses are very similarly designed, the sky was a clear blue when I was out, it was all so seemingly perfect. Not to mention, it’s a pretty hoity-toity neighborhood, where every house is beautiful and expensive and they’re all nearly right on top of each other….not the kind of place where B and I want to live, but pretty to run in. In fact, the houses all looked so similar that I was worried I’d get lost, so I kept to the same circle for the two miles. :) All in all, I completed 2.04 miles in 37:56 with an average pace of 18:37.

I was going more slowly partly because I had hills to contend with, which we really don’t have in Oklahoma. Also, my training plan (which I just got from http://www.runnersworld.com) calls for me to go at some pretty slow paces. I know speed isn’t nearly as important as endurance, especially for me as a beginner, so originally I intended to stick to the plan. I do want to be sure, however, that I’m prepared to complete Disneyland in August. That race has a required 16:00/mile pace…so I think I’ll be changing up my training plan just slightly to reflect that. B said there’s nothing wrong with making those slight changes because after all, training plans are just guidelines, not hard and fast rules.

After visiting with my brother and his family for a couple days, we’ve now driven out to western NC to visit my parents. Of course since I’m not accustomed to running in hills, much less mountains, I opted to do Thursday’s run (5/15/08) on the treadmill. :) I went for 2 miles at a steady 19:21/mile pace (3.1 mph), which took me about 40 minutes to complete. This was the pace my training plan had set for me, so that’s what I did, but as I said before I’ll be modifying that – I’ll likely change that 19:21/mile pace to a 17:10/mile pace and change future runs accordingly.

Thursday’s run went well, except I got tired very fast. I felt like I was going uphill, so I tried to change the incline on the treadmill…only I pressed the wrong button. I realized after a half a mile that the incline was set at 8.0. Such a Hayley thing to do! :) I quickly changed this and lo and behold the run got easier.

Finally, I’m now all caught up to the present on this blog. Yesterday and today are rest days/cross training days. Does playing with my parents two adorable Labrador retrievers count as cross training? :)

Happy running!
Hayley