Just as I decided that because of my lack of motivation/abundance of homework, my main source of exercise today would be walking to the mailbox and back, my new Richard Simmons DVD was delivered to me. It's like fate brought us together. The whole routine is 50 minutes long, and since I have class this afternoon, I didn't have time to do the entire thing, but I did about 20 minutes and it was hysterical. I don't like the lack of direction, but I think that after I do it a few more times I'll have all the moves down and won't feel so uncoordinated and confused. I did work up a decent sweat (not like running or 30 day shred, but decent) so once I know the moves and can actually do each of them I think it will be a great workout.
On Saturday I practiced the First Night route to see how much work I have to do to be able to finish the race. It is not easy because there are hills and I have literally never run on hills before. Thankfully, the uphills are relatively gradual and the downhills are steep enough that gravity does most of the work and you can catch your breath. I did much better than I expected, though, and actually nearly finished without stopping. I got to 28 minutes (new personal record!) and had to take a minute or minute and a half long walking break, and then I finished. I even sprinted at the end to finish strong! My total time, including my dumb walking break, was 33 minutes, so I was keeping a good 10-ish minute pace going.
This was the first time Dan has run with me in a very long time. Last time we ran together, I was barely able to do 5 minutes at a time. When I was getting really tired on Saturday, I started thinking about how far I've come with my running and that was really motivating.
My training plan is to keep building up to running for 30 minutes (will happen soon) on my regular route, to run the First Night route every other week to practice and gauge my progress, and I mapped out a 5k run in my neighborhood that I will run once a week. Ideally, by race time, I will be comfortable running 35 minutes without taking a break, although I expect to finish it in 30 minutes. Of course I'll be adding some 30 Day Shred and Richard Simmons into the exercise rotation to keep things interesting!
Now I'm off to class for the next 5.5 hours. Yikes!
you sound like you're doing just awesome!! Maybe I can add a little advice from Maddie. Her 5k plan, that I"ll be following, is as follows:
ReplyDeleteRun 4x a week
1run super easy (15min miles) for 3-4 miles
1run harder (11-12min miles) for 3-4 miles
1 run with sprints (run 1 mile really easy 15min, then run as fast as you can for 2 minutes then run SUPER easy for 4 min, then 2 minutes again SUPER fast, then 1 mile cooldown)
AAAND 1 run easy but long (I'm starting with 4 miles this week, but then 5 next week and then 6 2weeks after that and that should be enough)
That way I'm ready to go faster for longer. Just ideas that worked for me last time :) And I'm aiming for a finish with you at aboot the 30minute mark!!!