Automated Training Program...

(Thinking I should warn all readers that this is REALLY long and running-heavy... might be good before-bed reading... help you close those eyes and nod off...)

So I signed up for this thing called Focus N Fly.  I really would like to break an hour when I run the Bay to Breakers in May, so I decided to do this online training program.  I know that I could should have searched the garage for my awesome Galloway's Book of Running (I KNOW it's in there... KNOW it... just don't know where... and this is where following through on my Great Garage Clean-Up would have been nice,  know what I'm sayin'?) and probably gotten at least as much, if not more, from that but I'm going to try this Focus N Fly thing.  Under 60 minutes is a bit ambitious, and I fully recognize that and won't hurt myself trying to get there... just playing the running game like I play the card game Hearts and shootin' the moon like I always do ;-)

I can squeeze in a run about 3 times a week... sometimes 4.  I can only do every other day or I tend to get hurt.  And most of the time I need to run after my kids are all in bed... you know... when my energy-level is its highest ;-)  I've been just going out and doing 2-3ish miles twice a week at whatever pace feels tolerable (usually very slow... 11 min/miles or slower) and once on the weekend doing about 5-6ish at whatever seems to be working (often right at 10 min/mile or a tad faster).  It's been do-able and enjoyable and sort of stagnating.

This training program calls for "work".  Threshold "work", track "work", interval "work",  speed "work"... that sort of thing.  I am no longer used to this "work" business.  It requires actually timing sort of closely... and remember I'm usually in the dark.  And I need to be able to do it inside The Gate, so I have to drive around or Googlemaps the streets to figure out the distances pretty accurately.  Ugh.  So much hassle...

Anyway...

Tuesday was my first "work"day... Threshold.  Little warm-up (half mile), then these 25-second things.... sheesh!  10x 25 seconds of fast running with a little 25 seconds jogging easy in between.  What's fast?  I don't know anymore.  And I couldn't keep my timer handy (see below).  So I winged it.  Figured that if it was to hard to maintain beyond 25 seconds, that would be fast enough.  Then after that the schedule called for "2 miles @ threshold" which they defined as my 10K pace as calculated off of my most recent race which was a 5K... thanks, Anne Marie, for having that race so I could run in it and have an "official" race time!  lol  So I was supposed to run these 2 miles at a 9:38 pace.  Okay, I thought.  I can do that for sure.  No problemo.  I didn't bank on not being able to see a bloody thing out there that night.  It was pouring rain and I needed to keep my calculator-sized phone/music device in a plastic bag so that it wouldn't get wet and no longer work.  And it has a touch screen so I wouldn't be able to operate it with wet hands in the rain on the fly anyway.

*sigh*  What's a girl to do?

I did the jog and the quickies and then went onto my porch, stripped down to a short-sleeved tee and dried off my hands, started up the little stopwatch function on my phone (I am sooooo hi-tech), and away I went.  I decided to just hit something that felt a little quicker than I wanted and that would probably be exactly on pace.  I needed to finish the 2 miles in 19:16.  No splits or anything fancy like that.

As I chugged around my last turn, all I could think of was how glad I was that it wasn't snowy or icy or too windy and how glad I was that it was almost over and how it #@%* better be under 19:30!

Ummmmm.... yeah..... so about that pace thing.... need to work on that.... (said like the boss-guy from Office Space... one of my favorite movies and I've never even had a cubicle-job).

17:28.

oooops....

must not have gotten the memo...

I am sore in a good way for the first time since I started running again in August.  Not achy joints or stiff and tight tendons and ligaments from long-term disuse due to injury.  Soreness from "work"...

I like this!