She's Alive!!

So apparently what's been keeping me from halfway decent runs is the hot weather. Our temps dropped rather suddenly yesterday due to a huge storm, and this morning was almost cool. The humidity was low and it was breezy. What a difference it made! Don't get me wrong, it was still kind of hot, and that breeze turned into an unfortunate headwind, but I finally got in 2 miles! Finally!! It had been so frustrating to me that I just couldn't increase my distance back to what I consider my minimum, so I'm thrilled to finally have done it again.

Even better is that my pace has definitely dropped a bit. Today I was at 9:56 overall, a definite improvement. I hope that as the weather cools down (probably not until next month), I'll see continued improvement and I can get back to more serious training. I have high hopes for the Jingle Bell Jog this year!

First Day Of School Run

Had a quick run today after dropping Laura off at her first day of school. I have to admit it felt pretty good to get out by myself, although by the time I got home and ready it was after 9:30am and it was insanely hot. I felt like I was plodding the whole way, but I managed a 9:50 pace which is really surprising. The faster running lead to less distance though, and I only did 1.5 miles.

Hoping that I'll build back up to 2 miles pretty soon; for some reason I feel like if I can achieve that, then I can start building more distance, no problem. Hopefully that's true!

Slow Sprinting-Oxymoron or Pathetic Truth?

I had planned to take a walk today, due to feeling a little tired, but in the end decided doing intervals would give me the most bang for my buck, exercising wise. Hard work, but shorter time. I had Laura in the jogging stroller and it's insanely hot, so I didn't go nearly as quickly this time. Plus I upped my walking time to 45 seconds, from 30 seconds the last time.

I did my six reps and only did .97 miles (in 10:30). I suppose if I had just run a straight mile I would have been out for the same amount of time, but I definitely feel I worked harder. Hopefully I won't feel as sore tomorrow as I did last time I did intervals-I could barely walk down the stairs last time! This time my "sprinting" pace hovered around 7:45/8 minutes, much slower than last time when I was managing in the 6's and 7's. But nonetheless, I'm glad I did it, I certainly hadn't planned on doing anything remotely like work today.

First Try At Intervals

So I've read many, many times that to improve my speed, I need to be doing intervals. I recently read the blog of the lovely M.O.R.E. ladies, and I was completely in awe of their times from their most recent race, so I decided that would be my inspiration for today.

I used my handy Garmin to beep at me at the appropriate times-run 1 minute, walk for 30 seconds. I picked 6 reps, which seemed easy enough. I decided my one minute of running would be full out running, as fast as I could. Needless to say, it was insanely hard.

Part of the problem is that I run in a neighborhood, so I have to watch out for cars and yet again, loose dogs. The same dog from last time broke out of it's electric fence, right in front of it's owner, which was quite awesome. It proceeded to chase us so I had to turn around and go back, which really messed up one interval. Last I saw, the dog was heading off into the sunset and the owner was chasing it on bike. That really made my day, for some evil reason.

Towards the end I was definitely not running as fast as at the beginning. My legs feel like lead now, my heart rate was probably through the roof, and I have to say, I have a huge grin on my face. I did 1.01 miles in 9 minutes, which means that my running was pretty face if that was my pace including 3 minutes of walking. I hope that doing this every so often will help my speed.

I'm Hot!

I'm hot from my run, and in more ways than one (hey, that rhymes!) I'm hot because it turns out that even running at 7:30am is a hot, sticky disaster when it's July in North Carolina. And I'm hot in my father-in-law's terms, meaning I'm upset because once again, rogue dogs interrupted my run.

Across the street live the most vicious dachshund and chihuahua this world has ever seen. Those two dogs are absolutely insane, and you guessed it, are kept in the backyard day and night to bark at anything that goes by. I often hear them in the wee hours of the morning, barking at cars, and I always wonder how the owners aren't bothered by them. Anyway, this morning they escaped, as they occasionally do, and went two houses down from us to menace the poor beagle who is kept trapped on the outdoor deck day and night. The barking from all three parties started at about 7am and continued, non-stop, until I went outside with Moxie. Then they naturally attempted to chase us, so I turned right around, walked to their house and banged on the door until a very sleepy and half-naked man showed up. He seemed partially apologetic but also annoyed that I had woken him up. Luckily for him I'm not the swearing type or I would have regaled him with many profanity-laced stories about all the times his dogs have woken me up. He took them inside and put them out the back where they were happy to resume their barking. The great part was my sweet Moxie dog who was a little nervous with all the barking going on around her, but who stood there calmly and quietly while I talked to the guy.

So now that I've ranted about that, I'll talk about how running while coming down from an adrenaline high is not really very easy. I felt slower and more sluggish than ever, and did I mention how hot it was? I managed 17 minutes, so I'm slowly bumping up my time. My overall pace continues to hover at 10:28-I'd really like a 10 minute pace to be normal/slow so obviously I have work to do. Right now though is building time and distance, my husband doesn't want to hear it from me how slow I am until I'm backing to running for 30 minutes.

I May Never Be A Runner

I've been running here and there the past few weeks, with nothing all that exciting to report. In fact, my running has been the opposite of exciting. My best run as of late happened yesterday, and it lasted just 16 minutes. I'm trying desperately to get back in the game, yet not making any progress. 16 minutes is absolutely unacceptable to me, but I guess I'll have to be happy with that for now because I don't seem to be imporving at all.

My Garmin has been my faithful running partner, always there to helpfully point out just how slow I run. It drives me bonkers how slow I am. There is probably no hope of me ever having a group of people to run with, because I just wouldn't be able to keep up. The most frustrating part is that when I plug the Garmin in at home, the little chart that comes up shows your different paces, and which range they fall into "slow walk, walk, slog jog, run, etc". My running seems to hover between at a jog, so I guess technically I'm not running at all. You only merit being a runner if your pace is under 9 minutes, and even then you're a "slow" runner. Actual running kicks in at a 7 minute mile.

For now, I guess I'll just keep on jogging. As the blog says, I'm a girl who runs-kind of.

Super Fast....Kind Of

I'm having some painting done in my house today (hooray!) and had basically 12 minutes to run before the painters arrived. Okay, so maybe it was more like 20. But I wanted to do at least a mile and still have time to catch my breath before they arrived.

Moxie and I set off at a fast pace, and we managed one mile in 9:35. That's really fast for a slowpoke like me! I was so proud of myself (and Moxie) and would love it if that became our regular pace. Sadly though, I think we'll have to settle for our normal 11ish average. But right now my goal isn't speed, it's building distance!