Wednesday, January 26, 2011

All Aboard! Get on the Training Train!

Wednesday, January 26, 2011  at 5:20 PM
Wow, it has been an intense week of training for me.  Last Friday, Jennifer and I decided to brave the elements and go running in the snow.  It was 13 degrees outside and snowing pretty hard.  We layered up, so the cold wasn't too bad, but it was pretty rough to find solid ground as we slipped around on the roads.  Our cheeks were pretty red when we got back, and I even had a frozen and frosted goatee when we were through!  I'm glad Hal Higdon only had us running 3 miles, but it was well worth the effort.  It's such a blessing to have a wife that is tough enough to train in any conditions!



We rested on Saturday, but were ready to go on Sunday.  It's pretty funny to look on my weight chart to see how much I've lost since December 26.  You can totally see the weekends!  I seem to eat more and exercise less on the weekends, but I bet that's how most people are too.  As long as the weight keeps dropping off...  This morning I was 192lbs. which means that I've lost 18.4 lbs and only have 2 lbs to go before I register for the Steelhead Ironman 70.3!  Be looking for a picture of the scale the day that happens!!!  Tell me what you think of my chart.  My good buddy, Josh Woods, made it for himself and shared it with me.

My Weight Chart

Sunday morning was a shocker!  I took my dog, Maglee, out to do her business, but it was -9 degrees!  BRRRRR!  I looked at the weather forecast and saw that it was supposed to warm up to 18, so we waited to do our first "long" run until the afternoon.  Sunday was so beautiful!  The sun was out and shining so brightly.  It made the 18 feel more like 25 or 30 degrees.  Nick and I ran our 5 miles with a goal of 10 minute miles.  We ended up averaging 9:53/mile.  The goal is to up the speed every week by 10 seconds or so to get to our sub-9 minute mile which should put us under 2 hours for the Holy Half.  Jennifer did her run separately and met up with a friend to finish it.

Monday and Tuesday, I rode my trainer which was AWESOME!  It feels good to use slightly different muscles.  Also on Tuesday, Jenn and I did another 3 miler.  It was at a pretty easy pace, but it follows the schedule...

This morning, I had my first "Tempo" run.  I am defining that as my hopeful "race pace."  I was supposed to go 30 minutes, and I was shooting to average 9 minute miles.  Well, it went really, really well!  I felt great the whole time and even averaged 8:34 over 3.45 miles!  That was a nice surprise.  Hopefully, I'll just keep getting faster.  I know there are a lot of people, and even GIRLS, that could run circles around me, but as long as I finish the race at the goal I'm aiming for, I'll be cool with that.

The greatest piece of equipment that I have right now is this sweet baby:
It helps me so much to stay on target for my runs.  Jennifer and I have enjoyed it, and it has really helped us train.  Right now, we're looking at getting a Garmin Forerunner 205 so that each of us can have one when we train at the same time but at different speeds.

Tomorrow is another short run, and then it's on to 6 miles on Sunday!!!  Hopefully you'll see 190lbs pretty soon too!

2 comments:

Ironman By Thirty

Nice work both of you! I have had a Garmin 405 for a couple years now and I just got Jennie a 305 for Christmas. She had been using her iPhone with the MapMyRun app but I was worried that we would get caught in the rain and end up breaking the phone. I think I found the 305 for $99 at Walmart online.

Cool weight loss chart. It is awesome to see your progress. I'm not sure how you are tracking your run info, but I highly recommend Sporttracks. I've blogged about it few times and absolutely love it. There is even an area to track your weight in there as well along with all your workout data. They have both free and paid versions available: http://www.zonefivesoftware.com/sporttracks/

Good luck with your training!

tri like mary

The Garmin is such a great investment. Not sure what I could without it. Love the frozen goatee; my husband had one last week. Not having any facial hair (thank God) I only deal with frozen eyelashes that, to be honest, feel realy, realy, weird!

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