New Goals

Remember back here, when I talked about the 6th grade girl who could beat me in a 400? Well, I saw her this Sunday. She's now in 7th grade, and I asked her if she's gotten any faster. She informed me that she can run a 6 minute mile.

Ugh...

Well, I've decided that the 6 minute mile is now my new goal. I gave it a shot this morning to see where I stood. It was good running weather, not too cold. Just nice and crisp. I did a mile warmup to get myself ready and then took off.

Within the first 100 meters, I knew that I was in trouble. I figured I was running close to a 6 minute pace, but I could feel my legs already starting to get mad at me. At half a mile, I was starting to get pretty tired. At around the 3/4 mark, I noticed that I was breathing really had and had slowed down considerably. I picked up my pace as much as I could so that I could finish strong. My final time:

6:56...

I have a lot of work to do...which is actually fine by me. Having silly goals like this makes my running a lot more fun.

..and NEW World's Champion

To start off, I have to give a little background...

About a month or two ago, I had a 6th grade helper, E, in my Sunday School class (the sister of one of my 1st graders, S). We were at the part of class where the kids tell me interesting things that they've done during the week. S told me that his sister won 1st place in the 400 at a track meet. I asked her what her time was and she said that she ran a 1:09.

I wondered if I could run a 1:09 too. I used to run track, but I hadn't done any middle distance in a looooong time. Well, the following Monday, I went to the track to see how I would do. I figured if a 6th grade girl could run a 1:09, surely I could run something close to that.

WRONG!

I ran my lap and clocked in at a very unblistering 1:25. I was glad that E wasn't there racing against me because it would've been embarrassing. As it was, it probably just looked to everyone like I was doing a slow warm up lap. (Oh, by the way, E was very encouraging to me. I told her that I had run a 1:25 and she said 'That's not so bad! I have a friend who ran a 1:23!' I asked her what grade her friend was in, and she replied 'Fifth'. Great...)

I decided that I was going to start training to beat 1:09 so that I would no longer be slower than a 6th grade girl. I started doing interval training during the week instead of my normal slow jog. My workout was a mile and a half warmup followed by a couple of 400's and a couple of 300's (or 200's if I was too tired).

It didn't take long to see the results. Within a week, I was down to 1:13. The next week, it was down to 1:11. And finally...a 1:09!

I saw E at church and proudly told her that I had tied her time. She told me that that was really good! She also informed me that her other friend (also a 6th grader) ran a 1:07!

yay...

Ok, so now I had a new goal. But it wasn't so bad. I got my 1:07 just last Friday!

I think that I can now safely say that I am faster than all 6th grade girls in the entire world (doesn't count if their last name is Bolt, Lewis, Devers, or Joyner-Kersey).

Oh yeah, and that thing about the NEW World's Champion? Well, running my 400's has also helped speed up my one and a half mile warmup time. It used to take my a little over 12 minutes to run it. Today, I clocked in at 10:47! My own personal best! It seemed pretty fast, so I looked up what the Track and Field World's Record is for the mile and a half. Turns out there isn't any! There's records for the 1500, mile, 2000, and 3000. But no mile and a half. I must be the first, so I guess that makes me that Champ. I just need to figure out who to email my time to at the US Track & Field Association, so that they can update their World's Record page.

200

Remember a long time ago when I ran 100 miles? Well, apparently when I went running last week, I finally broke the 200 mile mark! The first 100 miles took me about a month and a half. The next 100 took over 5 months. Why the big difference? Here's why...

1) Well, there was a stretch where everyone in the house got sick, and I didn't run for a few weeks in a row.

2) I changed my goals. Actually, I really didn't have many goals before. I just wanted to run. Now, I have a good reason for running. I'm really just trying to stay healthy and to help strengthen my legs a little for basketball. I don't need to run 5 miles a day, every day to do that. If I was training for an event, like a distance race or something, it would be different. But I'm not. My routine now is a 5km run 2 or 3 times per week. That's it.

3) I had to stop doing challenges. I'm too competitive. When I got involved in a challenge, I was focusing too much energy on it. It took a lot out of me. I would run even when I was sick or it there was freezing cold rain. No more of that. When I do things like that, it makes it not so fun. And when it's not so fun, there's a bigger chance that I won't keep it up long term. As a result, now if the weather's too yucky, I won't go run. I'll do something else instead.

4) I put running at a lower priority. When I was doing the challenges, I had to make sure that I ran every day (sometimes twice). So I was spending about an hour a day doing that. Now I use that time for other things that I think are more important.

5) I changed my workout style a bit. I'm trying to run faster now, rather than longer. Since my workout distance is constant (5km), I can increase the difficulty by bumping my pace up a bit. I feel like this gives my leg muscles a better workout than running a longer distance at a slower pace. Before, I was running at around 9 minutes per mile. Now, I'm running at about an 8:30 pace. I also sometimes do interval workouts where I run fast for a little while, then slow down, then fast, then slow. I've never been a distance runner before, so this type of workout is more enjoyable for me.

So we'll see how long it'll take me to get to 300. Should be faster now that the weather's getting nicer. My guess is about 3 months.

100

I reached 100 miles today! It took me about a month and a half, but I did it! Woo hoo! Here's a picture of the certificate that they let me print out to commemorate my achievement...


If you would like to print out your own copy, go here.

Yay me!

Challenge Results

I just finished my 2 running challenges. I did pretty well in my How-Many-Miles-Can-You-Run-In-A-Week challenge. I actually did a lot more than I thought I would. I ran just under 30 miles. Not too bad! The hard part was that it was pretty cold and rainy during some of the week, but I still had to go out and run. On the last day of the challenge, it was particularly cold and rainy, and I wasn't feeling well. I was thinking of just running a little over 3 miles, but once I started running, I decided to bump it up to 4 miles. Once I got my 4 miles, I figured that I was already miserable so why not run a little farther. I ended up doing my longest run yet, a little over 5 miles!

I got 2nd place in that challenge, although I think the person that won seems a little fishy. They were behind me, but then somehow did just under 20 miles in the last day. Cheaters!

My other challenge was to run 50 miles before Christmas. I noticed that because I ran so many miles for my other challenge, that I was almost there. So I decided to see if I could do finish it before Thanksgiving. Which I did. Yay!

My first challenge

Well, I'm still running. In fact, I just entered my first 2 'challenges'. Challenges are these things you can sign up for on the Nike Plus website. If you win them, you get a little award on your screen. The first one that I signed up for was to run 50 miles by Christmas, which meant that I had roughly a month and a half to go 50 miles. Not too bad. The other one that I signed up for was to see who could run the most miles in 1 week. It said 'Beginners only', so I figured that this wouldn't be too bad either.

I was wrong. It has not been easy. First of all, there are some non-beginners in the challenge. At least I would consider them non-beginners because they're running 7 miles at a time. Second, there are people who include their walking distances. So they can run 3 miles, walk 3 miles and it counts as 6 miles. I'm only counting my running distance, so it's pretty tough for me to keep up. But the main problem is that my super-competitive instincts are starting to kick in, and it's wearing me out. The challenge started on Sunday night at 10pm. I seriously considered going out for a run right at 10. But my mom was over for dinner, and we played some boardgames afterwards. By the time she left, it was past 11. But I still wanted to go run.

Well, I didn't run that night. Instead, I ran the next morning...in the FREEZING COLD WIND and RAIN! I did a shorter run, just over 5km. But then I also ran again that evening, another 5km to make up for not running the night before. The next morning, it was cold, but not raining. I did another 5km. But I didn't run again that day and felt really guilty about it. Which brings us to today. Last night, I was in first place. But today, the run/walker did a 4+ mile run/walk to go ahead of me. So I decided that I was going to go ahead of them. I did 4.25 miles, my longest run by almost half a mile. And now I'm in...2nd place still. The 7 mile workout guy did 2 workouts and is now way out in first place by himself. I'd have to do another 4+ mile run to catch him. Which I would actually consider doing, if I didn't have basketball tonight.

But I am considering trying to do another 4+ mile run tomorrow morning. And I know I would be miserable the whole time. The morning after basketball, my body is usually pretty sore. Plus, I think it's supposed to be another cold, rainy morning.

When I did track and field for the community college several years ago, the coach said that I had a problem with overtraining. I'm starting to think he's right. I also think that I will be much happier once this week is over.

Busy Busy Busy

I haven't done an update here in a while, but I have several posts that are half done. I've found that it takes me a long time to do a really interesting post. And lately it seems like it's very hard to find any free time. But the fall soccer season is officially over now, so hopefully, that will make things a little less busy. Although we are thinking of signing both boys up for basketball. We'll see.

Anyhow, here are my 3 interesting things for the day.

1) One of the cats threw up on my VOIP router. It still works, but it's pretty yucky.

2) I made my first 2 running goals! Now I have 2 little medals!

3) I just saw this video:

Running Update

Now this is something unexpected. I've ran every day for the past 5 days. I even ran on Sunday! Sunday is our busiest morning because I have to leave the house really early because of Sunday school. But I NEEDED to get a run in so that I could move my running graph farther over. I actually woke up super early on a Sunday so that I could run. Weird.

Here's how I did:

Saturday

2.29 miles

20 minutes 07 seconds

8 minutes 45 seconds/mile pace

333 calories

The last part of the run was great. I clicked my power song on and ran up a big hill. And when my workout ended, Paula Radcliffe told me that I had just completed my longest run. Wow! Now that was exciting! Paula Radcliffe talked to me! What? You don't know who Paula Radcliffe is? Actually, I didn't either. But I figured she was some runner that is sponsored by Nike. It turns out that she's the women's world record holder for the marathon. Here she is in a commercial:

I took a look at her personal records. She can pretty much clobber me in any race from 400m on up. And not just a little clobbering. It would be a really good clobbering. I imagine that I could beat her in 100m, but I couldn't find any data on her times so I'm not sure. To be safe, if I ever have to challenge her to a race, I'll try and keep it to somewhere between 10 and 40 meters (probably closer to 10 would be better).

Here are my Sunday results. I didn't have that much time, so I just ran 2 miles:

2 miles

16 minutes 41 seconds

8 minutes 18 seconds/mile pace

291 calories

At the end of this run, Lance Armstrong talked to me and said that I just ran my fasted mile! Lance Armstrong! You've heard of him right? He runs the marathon 45 minutes slower than Paula Radcliffe.

Well, that brings us to today. I was all set to try for a 5k today. That's 5000 meters. 3.1 miles (although, I think 5k sounds much more impressive than 3.1 miles). But I wanted to make sure I could reach my goal, so I set the time for 25 minutes. I figured that if I felt good at the end of 25 minutes, I'd run a little extra and finish up at 5k. I made sure to start at a nice slow pace so that I'd be able to run the whole distance. My slow pace lasted for about half a block. WHAT? Ok, so things started to go south a little early. Right after I turned the first corner, I saw this lady running ahead of me. She was probably going at about a 9 minute/mile pace. My naturally competitive side kicked in and I HAD to pass her. And I HAD to be going FAST when I passed her. So I picked up the pace and blew by her. Because I'm just TOO FAST! And afterwards I kept going TOO FAST! I imagined her behind me, staring in disbelief at my blazing speed as I left her in the dust, slowing her pace down to a stop before turning around and walking home in disgrace, where she attempts to heal her agony of defeat with 3 eskimo pies and a box of mini-donuts (I don't know if it happened for sure, but I think it did). Anyhow, after about a half mile of this, I start to wonder if maybe it wasn't such a good idea that I went out too fast. I start to slow down quickly and finish my first mile in 8'37". But the section ahead is all downhill, so I get to pick up the pace again! Until...

 

CRACK!

 

That yucky sound we just heard? Yeah, that was my ankle. I stepped on this uneven part of the ground near the gutter and rolled it. OW! So here I am hobbling downhill. And I wonder, just for a split second, if I should just stop here and head home. But then I quickly realize that this is out of the question. Why? Because I need to make the line on my distance graph move over! That's why! So here I am hobbling downhill. I get to the bottom of the hill, and the ankle is still pretty sore. I check my pace and I'm at 9'58"/mile. Great...

But after a little while, it starts to feel a bit better. At this point, I'm only halfway done with my workout. The chart of my run shows my pace doing a nice shallow downward slope over the next 10 minutes. This represents me getting really tired and wishing that I hadn't tried to annihilate that running lady. But the last portion of the graph is a steep dip. That would be me struggling to get up the 1/4 mile hill at the end. My pace for that last section? A little slower than me hobbling with a busted ankle. Not so good.

After I got up the hill, I had only a minute or so left. I ended the workout promptly at 25 minutes. No extra for me today. I was beat. But Lance Armstrong came on again and congratulated me on completing my longest run. Lance is so nice.

When I got home, I decided to weigh myself to see what kind of effect my running was having. I stepped on the scale...I'm heavier than I was before.

So here's the results of my running: my legs are sore, my back is sore, my ankle hurts, and I'm 2 pounds heavier than I was before. But I have to keep it up because of my distance graph!

I have 2 goals set right now. One is to run 16 miles in 4 weeks. The other is to run 8 times in 4 weeks. I'm already over halfway done with both of them. When I finish them, I'm going to get 2 little medals. And when I logged in today, it told me that I've completed 11 miles and I need to keep going so that I can get up to 100! I think I get a little ribbon for that.

I'm not sure why little computer pictures of medals and ribbons and a bar chart of my distance is motivating me to do something that I don't like to do. But it is. Like I said, unexpected...

That guy running around the neighborhood in tights? Yeah, that's me...

It was a little cold this morning. There was quite a bit of fog out. So much in fact that when LilKat2 walked outside, he quickly turned around and shouted 'MOMMY! The world is BLUE!'

The combination of the cold weather combined with the fact that I need to keep running so that I can tell myself that I didn't waste $29 on my iPod running gadget forced me to break out the blue running tights. Yeah, I have blue running tights. But you didn't see it, so you can't make fun of me.

My legs were tired from yesterday, so I decided to do a timed workout this time, rather than go for distance. I set the gizmo for 20 minutes. And I remembered about starting off slower today. Anyhow, here is how I did:

Distance: 2.28 miles

Time: 20 minutes 17 seconds

Pace: 8 minutes 52 seconds/mile

Calories: 331

Hey! Not too bad! I was thinking that I would do a lot worse than yesterday since my legs were tired, but my pace was only a little slower and I went 1/4 mile farther. I was also able to include a .4 mile hill in the run too. Maybe I'll bump it up to 25 minutes next time.

I also got to use my 'Power Song' (Suckerpunch by Five Iron Frenzy. Ever heard of it? I hadn't either. I got it from a free download.). It's cool to see my pace go up on my running chart after I turned the Power Song on.

Well, my first goal is to run 16 miles in 4 weeks. I'm already 1/4 of the way there! Woo Hoo! It's kind of sad compared to what I used to do when I ran track and field, but I'll take it.

Nike + iPod

So back during my spending spree, I bought one of these Nike + iPod running gizmo's. I got it in the mail yesterday, and decided to give it a try this morning. Here's how I did:

2.02 miles

17 minutes 51 seconds

8 minutes 48 seconds/mile pace

294 calories

And it was not easy getting there. I'm not in very good shape right now. Hopefully this thing will motivate me to stay running. It actually serves a nice purpose for me. When I run, I really like to know my progress. I need to know how far I've gone and what my current pace is. This is why I like running around a track. However, running around a track is BORING! And I have to do math in my head while I run in order to calculate my pace. This new running gadget does all this stuff for me, allowing me to run wherever I want. I really enjoyed that.

It also uploads your running data to this nike website. You can take a look at your runs and see how you did. You can see a chart of your pace so you can tell how fast you were going throughout your run. This is helpful to me because I can tell from my chart that I started out a bit too fast. Next time, I'll slow it down at the beginning and maybe I can get an extra mile in.

Anyhow, it's a pretty cool toy. We'll see if I will actually continue to run with it. It does eliminate one of the big things that I don't like about running and adds some new interesting analysis capabilities that I like. However, it's starting to get colder and rainier and that always seems to thwart my attempts at becoming physically fit.