New shoes: check. Nice weather: sporadic
Posted by Gypsy on Feb 11, 2009
Living in Southern California, I expect every morning is going to be the perfect morning for a run. Unfortunately that is not always the case. Most of the time when I head out at 7 a.m. it’s still nice and cool and perfect for a 5-mile run. Then there are days like today, where I wake up and the rain is pouring down like a sheet. Luckily, I’ve already got an easy 15 miles in for the week, but with two days to go I need another 5 miles to hit my goal and yucky weather in the forecast.
On the plus side, I’m starting to see real improvement in my running. When I first started, it was taking me about an hour and six minutes to get through an easy 5-mile run. This week I was able to drop that to about an hour without any extra effort. This is a huge improvement. At this point, I’m hoping to get a couple more easy 20-mile weeks in before I bump that up and add in some speed training. I may do this earlier, though, if I find I’m recovering from my runs quicker.
Helping me out is the new shoes I bought last weekend. I got the Nike Zoom Elite+ 4, which is a performance stability shoe with tons of cushioning. At first they felt a little awkward, but that’s just because I’d been wearing my old shoes for about two years. So maybe just having some cushioning was a new sensation for me. Either way, I love them and definitely want another pair. I have them in blue, but am on the look out for them in purple as well so I don’t get the two pair confused. I’m an 8.5, so if you find them, let me know.
I’ve also registered for the America’s Finest City Half Marathon in August. Between now and then I’m hoping to do a few more races around San Diego to get prepared, mostly 5K and 10K distances. Still working on deciding which ones I want to do, though.
And now, here’s a pretty chart that shows what I’ve been up to running-wise:
Run, Gypsy, Run!
Posted by Gypsy on Jan 22, 2009
As you all know, I just recently moved to San Diego. One of my favorite things about this city is the weather. It’s sunny and decent out just about year round (with a rainy day here and there). This means I can enjoy running outside whenever I want to, which always makes me happy.
But rather than running just to run, I’ve decided it’s time to have a goal. The goal I’ve decided on is getting into shape to run the America’s Finest City Half Marathon in August. It’s 13.1 miles of running through downtown San Diego and should be a good time.
My training has been a combination of trying to eat right and a massive amount of running. I’ve stopped eating most junk food and started cooking healthy. At the moment, I’m running about 15 miles a week, but over the next seven months I will be slowly increasing that so I am prepared to run on race day. All my training will involve running in some way. These will include easy runs and long runs, both meant to build up my stamina and endurance, mixed with a few tempo runs to build up speed. I’m going to try and update this blog with my progress as I go along, but my training log can also be viewed here.
At this point, my goal with this marathon is not just to finish it, but to do it in less than three hours, which will earn me a finisher medal. As I train more and get a better idea of what I’m capable of, I might tighten up a goal a little bit and try to beat a certain time, but this early in my training it’s hard to tell.
