Speed and Fitness

After a nice recovery day on Sunday I set out for a 5 mile run on Monday. I have a babysitting swap with my lovely neighbor Kara and yesterday was my turn to drop off my kids. It was nice because that meant I didn’t have to get up crazy early and I could actually eat a good breakfast and let it digest before I ran.

My goal yesterday was to push for speed. 5 miles is a good distance for me because it gives me time to warm up but it’s not too long that I run out of gas. Anyway, I started out a little bit slow but by mile 3 I was running! There were some good hills on my run but I charged up them and didn’t hold back. I’m mad that I wasn’t wearing the Nike Plus sensor because I wish I had a more accurate measurement of my run but according to the clock I finished in 42 minutes. I think that’s around an 8:24 mile. On my cool down walk I felt so awesome! You always hear about the runner’s high, well yesterday I was feeling it. As I walked back to my house I lifted my arms up to the sky and let out a couple victory shouts. I’m sure people in my neighborhood think I’m a nut but man, when you feel that good it’s hard to keep it in!

After my run I hit the shower and then drove over to the gym at Taber’s work for a fitness assessment. I met with one of the personal trainers there and she stuck a heart monitor on me and then put me to work. We did a treadmill test, a flexibility test, then finished with push-ups and sit ups. She also weighed me on this fancy body composition scale and did the good old caliper fat pinching test. I remember having tests like that in high school and HATING them!! And while I still didn’t like the fat pinching the rest of it wasn’t so bad this time around. I’ll find out my results on Thursday and then I’ll do a session with the trainer to work on my weak spots and get a good cross training program down to carry me through the next 6 weeks.

And speaking of cross training, that is what I did today. My knees have yet to recover from Saturday’s long run and with our half marathon this Saturday I really don’t want to overdo it this week. So yeah, I did Debbie Sieber’s Burn it up work out which has great squats, lunges and leg strengthening exercises. Tomorrow I’ll probably run easy and I’ll keep icing my knees and wearing a brace till they feel better.