A friend recommended the book,
The Complete Book of Running for Women, to me and I have found it to be very helpful and motivating! My running lately has been pretty consistent, but I have only been working on distance. I am gradually making a couple of days a week a little longer, which has been good. After reading the entire book, though, I have seen some areas that would be fun to try to improve in...mainly endurance and speed.
I am not a fast runner, naturally, and hardly ever break a 10 minute mile. I actually enjoy running at about a 10 minute mile pace...it feels easy and comfortable. So, I know this is an area where I could improve.
Recently,I have decided to train for a half marathon. I am not going to be running in one, but I thought just the training for it would be helpful for physical fitness and endurance...and just be FUN! I'm not sure about running in races...I just don't know if I would enjoy that. I had enough of that from high school track days! It made me so nervous! Eventually I may try one.
The author of the book has lots of training charts and things to help you see how to train for longer races and I have used her advice on developing my own. The funny thing is...not a whole lot will change for most days...I'm just adding one long day, a speed day, and a day for hills only. This is my first week to put my schedule into practice and so far, so good...I haven't been too tired or injured myself...so that's a good thing!
Here is my new running schedule:
Monday--Repetition runs with hills. I have one really long hill(about 1/2 mile) near my home that takes me about 1 mile to get to, so I run at a comfortable pace there and then run up and down the hill 5 times. I felt like I accomplished so much when I was done! I also have a shorter steeper hill nearby that I am going to run up and down on some Mondays. Changing it up will be fun!
Tuesday--Relaxed run(4-6 miles) at a comfortable pace(10 minute miles).
Wednesday--My speed day. This week I pushed myself to run a 5K (3.1 miles) at a pretty quick pace, just to see how I would do. I actually averaged 9 minute miles and came in just under 28 minutes. I felt great afterwards, so I don't think it was too much for me. I am going to use Wednesdays as my day to try to improve that time and just work on running at my normal pace and speeding up for random amounts of time. Hopefully my pace will become a little quicker and I will gain greater endurance from this.
Thursday--Right now, this is my rest day because my girls have piano on this day in the mornings and we are out late on Wednesday nights(church)...so we all sleep in a little and RELAX! My regular rest day may be different once summer gets here.
Friday--Relaxed run (4-6 miles)
Saturday and Sunday--One of these days will be a long run day and the other day will be a rest day. It will just depend on what we have going on and the weather. My goal is to run 8-10 miles on the long day at a slow and comfortable pace. I may not make it to that this week, but will try to at least get past 6 miles. This will be a gradual process for me in the weeks to come.
So, there it is. Sounds fun, doesn't it?
