getting decent at the 5k...

..but I'm training for a half marathon, yes? Mr. Higdon? It's cool. I can definitely get on board and I understand the idea that I need to slowly build the miles that I can sustain a faster pace, as well as just building miles at the slower, easy pace. Actually, the 5k (or the 3mi time trials I was doing pre Higdon training plan) has kind of become my favorite love/hate run workout.. It's efficient and sufficient.. you know? I'm not out there for hours..but when you push hard on the pace, I feel sufficiently wiped out from the run. Today there was a 5k 'race' on the ol training dockett, so even though I did my last 3mi time trial just a couple weeks ago.. and last sunday I had a 3mi 'pace' run (meaning I needed to run just 3mi at the pace I'm hoping to run my half marathon), I decided to go for it again. I was really hoping to get under 22min and with my first mile coming in under 7min, I was hopeful.. But with the chilly air, a stop to prevent a dog from joining me for the rest of my run (side note.. get control of your dogs out there!? I've had more than my fair share of dog run-ins over the past few weeks.. some more amicable than others, but all need to be better wrangled in their yards, if you ask me..), a stiff head wind that some times made me feel like I was running backwards, and my sore legs from another great week of crossfit.. it wasn't meant to be. I did manage to eek out another very unofficial 5k PR of about 22:15. I pushed hard, but felt pretty good, overall. I had the distict pleasure of hearing each and every huff and puff and gasp for air as my ipod ran out of juice just as I finished my warm-up mile..so that was nice.. I cooled down with another couple miles and felt pretty good about the run. The rest of the week? As far as running..nothing too notable. I had my trail run last weekend and that went well. No clue about pace, but the weather and company was awesome and they tell me we did 7mi.. so that's good, I guess. My 'pace' run the next day felt great! What's my goal pace, you ask? Well.. I consulted Mr. McMillan to see what I should be aiming for in these training runs and such.. and turns out, he's quite the optimistic fella! Seems he felt that, according to my recent 5k times, I should be shooting for a goal pace of something in the mid 7:50 min/mi range.. Well, that seems ambitious, but I figure my goal pace will be 8 min/mi, but if I can hold 7:50's, that would be good, too.. So I aimed for my pace run to be 3mi at 8min/mi and I was surprised to find that holding under 7:50 felt pretty darn easy! I know it was only for 3mi, but it definitely gives me hope that I'm heading in the right direction with my training and can maybe pull out a decent half marathon or two this season.. and maybe even PR the full?! Let's not get ahead of ourselves, but it sure felt nice to push the pace a bit and have my body respond positively. During the week was business as usual with my early running on the treadmill before crossfit. I actually took saturday off from running, so today's 6mi with the 5k 'race' in the middle was my only run.. but another week of Higdon training in the books! Other stuff.. I biked twice and swam once.. I think I'll stick to that plan, at least for this month. I think I've mentioned before that, ideally, I'd like to swim or bike in the evenings on the nights that I teach gymnastics.. but I'm not ready for that just yet.. Maybe next month.. or the next.. Whenever. At the very least, when summer comes creeping up and I set my sights on some tri's, I'll up my swim and bike.. but until then, I'm just going to do whatever fits in to the week to allow me to cross-train and maintain at least a tiny bit of my swimming and cycling fitness. Crossfit continues to be a lot of fun for me. My hands are healing up nicely and I was even able to do a pull-up workout and bar muscle-ups this week without having to slather my hands in athletic tape..so I consider them pretty well healed. Of coarse, now I have some rips on my wrists from working on ring muscle-ups.. Darn it all if I'm not getting close to conquering that skill. I'm going to keep at it and I WILL get myself up on those rings. Nothing too exciting from this week, except that I was happy that I could pretty easily complete a hang clean and front squat workout with the 'prescribed' wt of 115#.. That's about 90% of my 125# max, but judging from how well I could handle that wt in the workout, I'm thinking I should go for a new 'clean' PR.. yes? Maybe next weekend.. Mason and Miles? All good things there.. Miles has conquered the 'front to back' roll. I'm pretty sure he views the 'back to front' as a 'why would I do that?' kind of thing. Mason started back at his 'gymnastics flips' class, which he actually asked me for for Christmas! He loves it.. not exactly a 'natural', but who cares if he's having fun. Teaching/child watch went better this week. Miles continues his 'anti-bottle' campaign, so we'll see how it goes this week when he stays a little longer.. I'm going to stay to teach both classes, so that means the boys wait for Matt to pick them up.. which is only a difference of 30 minutes, but man that can be a long time in baby world! So we'll see.. I'm sure it'll be great.. So that's about it for us!

Good News/Bad News..

I feel like this week has been full of good new things.. all with some sort of caveat.. Nothing huge, just a little bit of.. "you can have this good thing, but ya gotta give a little something back". For example, this morning, I'm up at 5am, been up since my 4am wake-up feeding with Miles..but I don't need to be up this time?! So, good news is I've adjusted to waking up at 4am for my workouts and other morning duties.. bad news is that even when I was going to 'sleep in', I'm up.. Not a huge down side, but still.. I was kind of excited about the idea that I was going to take it easier this weekend with my workouts and such and I'm just planning to meet some friends for a 6mi trail run later.. I guess the 'back up' side of it, though, is that I'm getting some writing in! Another 'good news/bad news'?..it's 50 degrees in Indiana in January.. Awesome! Buuuut.. it's going to rain every day until it gets cold again.. Oh, well. I'll take it. I'm taking advantage of a few dry, warm hours today and hitting the trails with my old trail running buddies. I've, for some reason, gotten away from running trails and I miss it! I know what's kept me from them.. it's just easier to run straight from my house and not waste the extra time driving and such.. But, since I'm not doing any of my other usual saturday am stuff (Crossfit.. it's closed today because there is a big competition in town and some folks from the gym are competing! I really, really want to go watch some of it.. but we'll see if I can make that happen) and it's going to be so crazy nice out, I figured today would be a good day to take a little extra time and get out to enjoy some wooded running. So. Let's review this week, shall we? My first official week of following a plan.. I'm realizing more and more that I need to really just focus on what I've determined as my goals for this year and just let go of my 'need to do all the things' ways.. Meaning.. I need to be OK with missing swimming and spins if time/ schedule/soreness/sleepiness/etc doesn't allow for it. I need to get my running in and do as much crossfit as time allows and just be good with that. Those are the goals that I set for myself, after all.. so now I just need to embrace it! So this week, so far, I have done all the running that Mr. Higdon advised. With today's 6 mi run in the woods, which I'm sure will be plenty slow, that covers my 'long' run for the week and leaves me with just a 3mi 'pace' run for tomorrow. I'm thinking, unless it's raining hard, I'll try to branch out of my 'hood a bit and hit some hills, but then that will be it for me for workouts tomorrow.. So just running this weekend! Doesn't exactly sound exciting or note worthy, but for someone who normally tries to cram all sorts of workouts in (ie: I just let go of the idea of doing my own triathlon of sorts today.. I thought, since I missed my swim yesterday..due to my crazy boys and their early am hijinks!.. I'll go swim early today, then, since I'm there, I might as well spin..and then I'll head out for the trail run!.. welcome to my world of crazy), I'm kind of strangely proud of myself for re-evaluating that plan and deciding what was best, not only for meeting my current goals, but also for what my family needs. Of coarse, my family would survive with me gone for the morning.. Matt can handle things just fine.. BUT.. would I feel good about it? That is the question, my friends. I have no problem at all taking time for myself to do the workouts that I enjoy and that get me closer to my own, personal physical goals, but when I start adding things in 'just 'cause'? I gotta draw the line there. More so these days, I'd say, with having the two boys and all. Re-learning the infant stage all while balancing time with Mason has had it's..well, to stick with my theme here.. 'good and bad'. I won't go in to great detail and we're certainly working things out, but it's hard to meet both boys' needs all the time..and with Matt's long work hours, a lot of the time I'm on my own.. it can get messy at times, but we're doing our best and figuring things out. Mason tries his best and is a huge help a lot of the time.. He is 4, though, so he has his moments. Anyway, I got off track a bit there.. Where was I.. The rest of this week was good.. Did just 1 swim, which was a bit of speed with 50's and then some other stroke/IM stuff. I squeezed in a spin yesterday during one of Miles' naps.. basically 10 min of steady/slightly fast spin increasing resistance every 2 minutes, then 15 minutes where I switched to the heavy ring and did 2 min steady climb and 1 min stand/sprint, repeat..then Miles was up, so my spin was done! I actually had a good sweat going and was pretty ready to get off the bike anyway, so it worked out well. Crossfit is still going well. Good news on monday was that I got my bar muscle ups and was able to do them in the workout.. Bad news was all that swinging on the bars gave me matching rips in the middle of both hands. Another good thing was that I started back with teaching gymnastics this week.. Bad news was that the child watch place is an overstimulation nightmare for a sleepy baby and by the time I came back (only an hour!..I'm just doing set up and 1 class for this week and next, then I'll start staying a bit longer to do both classes) he was all hot and bothered from crying and they had squeezed the poor thing into these newborn size shorts I happened to have in my bag.. Oh, those thigs were not meant to fit in there! They claim he was OK for a bit and was in the swing doing fine for a while, and he wasn't crying the whole time.. but that was the most upset I had seen him and it broke my heart to think of him crying up a sweat in there while I was teaching. He calmed down as soon as I held him and the rest of the night was fine.. but if it doesn't go better or we don't figure out a way to make things go smoothly for him while I teach, I just don't see how it makes sense for me to continue if it's going to make him so upset. I can always wait until he's a little older and can handle the child watch stuff a little better. It really isn't equipped to handle sleepy babies, nor do I expect them to be able to soothe him to sleep.. so we'll just see. Matt seems to think it will work out and be fine, but a lot of things have changed since I originally took on this job and it may not make sense for us at this time.. When I started, it was just taking Mason to child watch and he was old enough to actually play and enjoy that time.. But now, Matt's long hours and an infant with his schedule and needs in the mix.. Again. I keep saying it. But we'll just have to see. I'll give it a fair chance, but I'm not about to have my little guy in fits every tuesday and thursday night just so I can teach a couple tumbling classes.. you know?? Anyway. So that's that. Anything else? I think that covers it. Wish me luck in my first trail run in a while! I hope I don't fall down..and that the trails aren't so soggy that it's no fun.. But I know it will be nice to get out, enjoy the day and the company of my old running friends!

It's On..

..sort of.. So I took a look back at the last post there.. Not only was it jam packed with type-o's, it gave me a quick flash back to how much can change in just one little month! Anyway, I've made some decisions...sort of.. and am following a 'plan'...more or less.. My original idea, if you'll recall, was to wing it and do the gradual long run mile increase with the first of the month 3mi test run.. Well, I still am keeping that plan in mind, but it occured to me that just upping my long run distance and keeping it high for months and months might not be all that great. SO. Enter good ol Hal Higdon. He's an old pal of mine.. I used his plan back when I did my first half and full marathons.. so I figured I'd see what he thought about the whole training thing and I liked what he was throwing down. I've had a coach for training in the past and I definitely don't think I'm 'above' needing a coach.. Quite the opposite, actually.. I shall return to my trusty coach.. once I have a new goal to strive for. Right now, though, I'm just trying to get back a good, solid base and THEN I'll see where I'm at and what kinds of crazy plans I can make for myself.. For this season, though.. I still want to work on and improve my running.. which I suppose could be 'coach worthy'.. but I think maybe I don't want the extra pressure.. So a free plan from the world wide interwebs fits the bill. And just what, you ask, are these big plans you have?? Well, I've decided my first half marathon will be the Sam Costa Half Marathon, which is a small, local race that a friend of mine has tried to get me to run for years.. The timing was right, so I guess I'll finally see what all the fuss is about! So my plan for that started this week..which I didn't actually know until last night (saturday)..but it turns out I was pretty on track, so we're good! My weekly plan will look a little something like: Monday: short warm-up run and CrossFit Tuesday: swim and spin Wednesday: (will be kind of a doozy..so may need to adjust..) speed/hill run and CrossFit Thursday: short run and CrossFit Friday: EZ swim Saturday: pace run and CrossFit (it's a skills and 'active recovery' day) Sunday: LSD run or at least that's my plan for now. You may notice the lack of a full day of rest.. which I know is important.. but until I go back to 2-a-days..which I'm hoping to start that at some point soon when I start back teaching gymnastics.. But we'll see. I'm definitely aware of the problem. For now, though, I see friday 'EZ swim day' as rest.. I know.. This week followed that fairly well. There was a holiday in there, so a little different. But mostly we were on task. As for those 'changes' alluded to in the start of this entry? Well, today was my 3mi test run and I improved by 2 minutes again?! I really didn't think, after the last one and how much it hurt.. I didn't expect to go faster.. and my time keeping skills were 'unofficial' at best.. but I did my 3 miles, after a 1mi warm-up, in 22:18! Still not setting any land/speed records or anything, but I'm happy with the improvement. It still hurt, but I think it felt a little less like death than the last time..though if you judged it by my 1mi trudge home, you might beg to differ. So there's that. I topped my LSD runs last sunday with a lovely 9mi treadmill run. That was kinda tough. I need to get my treadmill calibrated, or something.. because the paces are definitely off.. But it was too cold and icy last week and I just didn't feel like spending 9mi looking for clear roads to run on.. so basement 'mill it was. It wasn't that bad.. but I definitely prefer the fresh air. I've come to realize I really look forward to and enjoy those sunday runs, so I must be doing something right as far as balancing how much running I'm doing. I actually enjoy all of my workouts right now, which is a really good thing...and is also why I can't seem to cut anything out to give myself a rest day.. I've started using actual workouts for swimming again..so I have that going for me. Nothing too crazy, but getting back in to the idea of having a plan when I hit the pool.. trying to work on some speed, watching the clock and such.. Hadn't done that in a long time! I toyed with the idea of going to do a modified version of 100 x 100 with Indy Aquatic masters on New Yrs day.. I would have done 75's because they were going on the 1:40, which I would not have been able to make.. and I was just going to do as many as I could.. So I did kind of a trial run on my own and did: 6 x 75 swim, 6 x 75 pull, 6 x 75 kick, 6 x 75 swim with fins, 6 x 75 pull with paddles, 6 x 75 back kick.. I think.. it was something like that.. darn it. I'd like to gradually add on to that, so next time I have a little more time to spend in the pool, I'll do 8 of each of those 75's.. then 10.. and so on.. (I stuck with the 1:40 interval). I also have enjoyed doing workouts with a lot of 'other' stroke work.. back, breast, and I even include a lil fly in there from time to time.. Stop laughing at me, lifeguards.. stand down.. I am not drowning, can't you see I'm a beautiful butterfly in here??!! Spin kind of is what it is right now. I'd say the bike is going to be the thing that takes a bit of a back seat this winter/right now. I kind of bounce around between my trainer, doing my own spin sessions on a spin bike at the Y, doing the ol' programs on an exercise bike, or going to spin class.. But until it warms up, I just have to try to keep myself entertained on the indoor cycle options.. CrossFit is coming along. I've been feeling like I'm making some improvements there and have decided to really focus on strength and olympic lifts and skills that I need. There is the 'Open' games stuff coming up in Feb or March, so I figure we'll see how things go with that and if I/our team makes regionals again, maybe I'll dabble in some crossfit competitions.. So we'll see what happens there. I did a couple of max effort olympic lift things this past saturday.. so as of now, my max for Power Snatch is 90# and max for Clean and Jerk is 125#..Plenty of room for improvement there, but a good start and definitely working on form. So that's that! Only thing left for me to figure out for this season is what to do as far as triathlons.. I had said earlier that I would just do some sprints and kind of lay low on the tri's this summer.. but I just can't seem to get excited about the short stuff! I don't know what it is.. maybe I'm actually just scared to try to push that hard in the short races.. I don't know.. Plus, if I'm focusing on running half and full marathons.. it just seems to make more sense to me to do a half IM or two.. No? Anybody else follow that logic? I'm tinkering with some ideas still, but I'd really like to do the KS 70.3, which would be 1 week after another half marathon that I plan to do..which is also in KC.. which would mean a week long stay with the folks! It's a plan I've had for a while now..to do the two races, stay with my parents, get a little extra visit time with them AND get to do two races.. everyone wins, right?! Then I'm still figuring out whether I'd do a second half IM or not.. Gotta make some decisions soon, though.. I already missed the first price increases and the next increases are looming.. So those are my loose plans for racing and my first part of training has begun! In other news.. The boys are great. Mason had a wonderful Christmas and is already planning out the return of his 'elf on the shelf' and what he will ask Santa for next year. Miles is.. still growing! He has rolled from tummy to back a couple times, though I'm not sure I'm ready to declare it as an official skill...mighta been a bit of a fluke, but I know it's all coming! He's had some teething pain lately, which has made lying on his back no fun for him.. good thing he's comfy in his car seat, though, so he's been sleeping there for a few days. Most of the time, though, he's a chill, smiley, fun guy that's getting interested in toys and LOVES to smile at his big brother! Mason loves it, too. He'll ask if he can go in to Miles' room when he's waking up from a nap so he can make him smile.. Very sweet. I think that's about it for now. Hopefully I'll make some more decisions and put some money where my mouth is! Race Plan for this season to be continued..but it's in the works and coming along!