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!