Speed Training

I hate the stroller.

Yep, that stroller I talked about before, the one that I was so excited to get.  Yeah, that one.  I hate it.

It is so heavy and hard to steer because it is misaligned.  It adds a minute or two to my pace and I can’t run as long with it.

Last Wednesday while Ian was in school I decided to take Sid for a run.  Not only was I slow by after two miles I had to stop.  I just didn’t want to push it anymore.  I was running in our neighborhood, so I went back to the house.  Parked him in the grass and did sprints up and down the street in front of our house.

I love that I have the freedom to still go for a run when I just have one kid, and I probably still will….but you bet your sweet ass I’m gonna bitch about it the whole time!

So to recap my speed training last week; ran two miles with the stroller at a 11:52 min/mile pace.  I ran 3.14 miles at a 10:54 pace, and 3.20 miles at a 10:42 pace.  Those were on the treadmill and the distance includes my cool down time.

When I did the 3.14 miles I walked about 1/4 of a mile twice during the run.   But the last one, the 3.20 miles, I didn’t walk even a 1/4 of a mile once.  To me this shows that I am improving my lung function, which is making me stronger and faster.

And then there was last night.  Last night I ran the first mile at 10:42 then increased the speed for the second mile to 10:31.  For the 3rd mile I increased it again to a 10:21.  But at the almost 3/4 mark I increased it again and again at when I had 1/10th of a mile to go.  I was at just over 32 minutes when I hit 3 miles so I kept running till I got to 33 minutes, then started my cool down, for a full five minutes.  My total run was 3.30 miles, I had a technical issue during the first mile that set my time back by a minute, but other than that I didn’t walk at all.

 

I updated my iOS for my iPhone, recently and there is a new app that Apple installs with this update.  At first I was like “ugh! another Apple forced app that I don’t use but takes up space on my home screen!”

But then I opened it and found something I could use!  (no, this is not an endorsement, just my opinion)  It’s called Health, or referred to as Healthkit.

Some of you may already have known this, but I didn’t, the iPhone has a motion sensor (at least the 5 and higher does).  This means it has a pedometer capabilities.  Again, this may be old news to you, but not to me.  I have been wanting to record my steps as well as my miles running.  A GPS app, like Map My Run, won’t work inside my building where I work, especially in the stairwells.  Now I can!  This is exciting news to me, so I thought I’d share it.  I can also record the flights of stairs I take each day, and it connects to Map My Run so I don’t have to record my runs twice.  (It also works with Nike Fuel)

You can also record a bunch of other stuff, but the exciting thing for me is the pedometer function.  Plus it has been recording all month, I saw on Sunday I took over 9,000 steps!

 

 

Just. Keep. Running.

C25K interval information can be found here

A good article about getting faster can be found here

Want to find out what races I’ll be doing next year?  Check out my list.