Week Negative Six

Today is my first structured running day. I have six weeks before the start of Hal Higdon's 18-week program but I wanted to get in the groove sooner than that. I extrapolated his plan backwards to this week with the same scheduled days on and off and slightly reduced mileage. [A little digression on my running background: I first took up running as a senior in high school. I was overweight and I wanted to not be overweight. I also did Tae Bo and used my mom's old exercise bike, but neither seemed to really give me the cardio I thought I needed. So I started running (very, very slowly). I did the whole walk/run combo for a few months (holy painful shin splints Batman!) until I could go for 30 minutes straight. I reached my peak as runner the summer after freshman year of college. I was living at home and working in retail 30 hours a week, leaving me with a lot of time to run. I did 6 miles a day 6 days a week on the trails at the state park. It was awesome, I loved it, and I still love trail running more than anything. I never kept my times or thought about racing; I was running purely for fun & exercise at that point. Sadly, I did not keep running when I went back to school (for a variety of reasons, both mundane and exotic). I stayed in decent shape but not through running. I'd jog a few miles once or twice a month but that was it. End digression.] This summer I eased back into regular running as a way to get out of the gym and enjoy the great weather. I would say that since August I've been running 3-5 miles about 3 times a week, with a lot of hill work thrown in because oh hey, I live on a big hill. My goal for the next six weeks is to build up to a strong, reliable base of about 17 miles per week while starting to extend my long runs on Saturdays. I don't plan on incorporating any speed work until I actually start the program, because I want my base to be rock solid. At the end of six weeks I'd like to be chafing at the bit to increase my intensity. We'll see how it goes of course, in six weeks I may be crying uncle and taking up boxing or something. (In which case I'll field suggestions on renaming this blog. I vote for "My First Concussion.")

I've been wanting to get as many races of any distance under my belt as possible, so that I can get used to the atmosphere and the nerves before a race start (I assume it is slightly different than dragonboat racing). I plan on doing the Pier Park XC race on 11/17 and the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day. I'm already committed to the Ho-Ho 5k on 12/9.

Gear update: I realized that I need to get an HRM. Everything I've read is all "heart rate this" and "heart rate that". Clearly a heart rate monitor is a key training tool and it make a lot of sense to me. But I was really torn between getting a fancy thing like the Forerunner or a simple HRM watch. My problem with the Forerunner is I don't need the GPS capability - I plan on mapping all my runs ahead of time. Plus, based on what the consumer reviewers had to say about the Forerunner's tracking capabilities I'm probably not missing anything. Really I just want an HRM/stopwatch combo, so I got a Timex Ironman watch for seventy bucks from Amazon. Once I've taken it out for a few runs I'll share my thoughts.









(Check out this completely unnecessary photo of my cat! Sweet!)