Last Full Week of Training for the Bluenose

Today marks the first training run of the last full week of training before the Bluenose.

This is how this week's training looks:

Today - 8K steady run
Wed - 8K tempo
Thurs - 5K steady
Fri - Off
Sat - 6K steady
Sun - 13K LSD

Of all of them, tonight's and tomorrow's tempo run make me the most nervous. 8K still seems like a pretty long run to me to run on a regular evening, although I know that's all in my head. As far as tomorrow's goes, it's another 8K and it's a tempo run, which I've never run before. That should be interesting.

Ahhh Friday, My Old Friend

I don't say this often, but thank goodness it's finally Friday. Not that this week was particularly crappy or anything, but I'm just really happy to see the weekend.

I just wanted to say that I'm really proud of myself this week. I've put more kilometers on these little legs than I ever have in a week before - 33 kms to be exact. And the fact that I'm still alive is a total bonus. The calorie burn isn't too shabby either.

The 10K race is now just two weeks away. I realized early this week that I had been following a not-so-great training schedule from the Running Room to train for this race. Thank goodness Mousie put me on the straight and narrow (and long and hilly) path. I hope it's not too late to save this training effort or this race. I guess we'll see in a couple of weeks. Thanks Mousie.

My Running Freak Out

I hate having a run like that - I just HATE it!

I started out feeling fantastic, like really really good, and I thought, "this will be an easy run for sure, it'll take no time". Those thoughts soon turned to, "I can't do this, I can't run a 10K, I'm so slow, this is embarrassing". It just got worse from there.

So I know I can run 10K. Geez, I'll make it through somehow, it's only 10K. Will I be able to finish in a respectable time? I doubt it. This just makes me not want to run it at all. I'm just going to be embarrassed, and I just can't handle that.

As a matter of fact, nothing's going right right now. Nothing. I'm eating well, but not losing weight, so I'm carrying around at least an extra 10lbs for no good reason. I'm getting more and more frustrated about eating well and not losing.

I'm honest to goodness following a training program for a 10K and have been for weeks now, and I'm not getting any better. I'm a slow runner and I hate it.

This just isn't fair.

What a Great Run This Morning!

I got up early this morning and watched a re-run of X-Weighted. The person on the show was a woman who refused to follow the eating plan accordingly (she was all about low-carb dieting at 800 cals/day!), but did discover that she liked running, which eventually led her to lose the weight she wanted. At the end of the show she ran a 10K.

After the show, I headed out for my regular Sunday run, my long run for the week. I was aiming for between 7-8K today. I also decided that I would not pay as close attention to my heart rate, so I turned off the heart rate alarms I had set in my Garmin, and off I went.

I felt fantastic! About 1/3 of the way through the run I decided I'd add a bit more distance to my regular route. I figured worst case scenario, I just finish with walking. So I stopped to chat to a couple of bikers on the trail I was on to ask about the best loop I could do to add a little bit of distance. Friendly they were, helpful not-so-much. So I figured out my own way to add a kilometre or two.

I ended up running 10K! Me - 10K! Random! It was awesome! I felt great, wasn't too tired, wasn't struggling to breathe, nothing. It was great, and I was so proud. I have been so down on running since my co-worker told me my heart rate was running too high, blah, blah, blah. And today was the first day I stopped paying such close attention to it - and I had the best run I've had in about a month and a half! I'm just going to keep things the way they are, add distance when I'm comfortable, and carry on. Woohoo!