Tuesday Track Workout

I managed to convince Mary and Cass to try out the track for a workout this morning. I was glad they were game because I knew I wouldn't do it by myself.

We met for our regular Tuesday 5:30am run near my house and ran the 1 mile to Parkland's track. I did not fully disclose what we would be doing because I wanted to leave some suspense. I actually dumbed down a workout that I did with Second Wind just because I didn't want us to kill ourselves the first time trying it.

So, we attempted a 400 at a quick clip, with Mary and I coming in around 1:31. We were exhausted...that was a bit too fast for us.

We slowed down the second attempt after a quick breather and pulled off 1:51, I believe. This beat the range I thought we were capable of doing 1:55-2:05, so I was pleased.

On our third lap, we came in at 1:47. I informed the girls that for our last 400 we had to beat our best time by 2 seconds. We were all able to do that.

We are hoping to try and do this once a week to see if the speedwork helps are regular pace. Each week we will switch it up a little bit or at least add on an extra 400. Today we just ran back to our respective houses, although Mary did crank out an extra 2 miles.

We did all meet up again later today at the gym for our Cycling Interval class. This was our second go at this one, and I think I'm hooked. It consists of 30 minutes on the bike followed by a 30 minute Cross-Fit typed workout. Today we spent 10 minutes getting through 20 squats on Bosu balls, 20 push-ups, and 20 core cross overs with medicine balls as many times as we could. I think I made it through each activity 3 times and did the squats a 4th time. I felt much better doing it tonight than I did last Thursday, so we shall see how it goes this Thursday.

The last part of class was devoted to balance work combined with stretching. If you want to see something funny, just come and watch me try this. I have known that I don't have very good balance, but it became quite evident last week when I tried this. I showed some subtle improvements, but I still have a lot of work to do.

This class seems to be the perfect fit for me and I'm glad that I tried it out last week.

Madison Half Photos

And I'm Back!

I don't anticipate updating as regularly as I had been, but I haven't stopped since the marathon. My runs have drastically decreased in length, but I've been managing to run 3-4 times per week. 3 weeks after the race, I put in an 8 mile run on the weekend for my first long run. I have since done a half marathon while up in Madison. It felt great to be back running and I wouldn't have put in that distance if I had not been part of a race. I have my eye on quite a few races coming up, all different distances. I intend to work on my speed a little more, but have not been tied to a plan just yet.