Mixing it Up a Bit

With the race in Seattle just ten and a half weeks away, I am trying to mix things up a bit. First, I know that I have to train more consistently during the week than I have been. My normal schedule calls for resting Sunday, cross training Monday, running Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, resting Friday, and running Saturday. Saturday is the longest run of the week, and is our team training, and Wednesday is normally about half the miles of Saturday. Tuesday and Thursday are normally just 3 or 4 miles. But it has been hit or miss for me most weeks, other than the long training on Saturday.

So this week, I am sticking pretty well to the schedule. I ran Sunday, 3 miles around Echo Lake. That was fun, and in daylight. Monday, I ran two miles in the morning. In the evening, I had to go to a Team in Training function, so there was no time for my normal water aerobics, which is excellent cross training. I did spend about 15 really hard minutes on an eliptical machine, tiring my quads and driving my heart rate high. Then I spent about 8 minutes on a treadmill set to 15 degrees of incline, and walked as fast as I could with tired legs. As fast as I could on that degree of slope was only 3.2 miles per hour, believe it or not.

I took Tuesday as a rest day, as I continued to mix things up. Then tonight, our coach started an optional midweek training after work, and I decided to go. I was the only participant there, but it was great fun. Normally I am doing my fairly long Wednesday miles (a) by myself and (b) in the early morning dark. Running in daylight, looking at all the flowers, and chatting with Chuck made the time fly. I did run - walk intervals using my watch, and did five miles in 53 minutes, which is a pretty good pace for me right now. If I could hold that pace for 13.1 miles, it would translate into about a two hour and 20 minute half marathon. My goal is 2:30 right now. Anything under about 2:44 beats my previous half marathon time. So I think I am going to try to go to more of the Wednesday trainings, and hopefully a few teammates will show up. It is a lot more fun than running alone in the dark while the world sleeps.

Tomorrow, I plan on going to water aerobics, but I am also going to try to spend about 20 minutes on a treadmill doing a speed workout. I am thinking 1 minute at something like a 7.5 minute mile (yeah, that is speed for me, given my normal running pace is somewhere around a 9 - 9.5 minute mile) and then maybe 2 minutes walking fast. I'll try to repeat that sequence six or seven times.

Friday, I will definitely rest, and Saturday I will go for 8 miles - my longest distance so far this season. And next week, I am going to add 15 seconds to my run intervals, making them 4:30, and maybe shave 15 seconds off my walk interval, making them 2:15. I'll see how it goes, but right now, it feels good to start ramping things up, and mixing them up a bit as well.