Week in the Rearview Mirror: April 29 - May 5, 2012

While this was a really good week in many respects, it was also a weird week. Since I started back from fat and out of shape almost a year ago, I've tracked all the activities I've done in a spreadsheet (for me, that's just part of the fun :-)). For the prior 49 weeks, I have ALWAYS engaged in at least 2 different forms of exercise during my Sunday - Saturday weeks. But not this last week...it was exclusively running. No, it's not my new direction or anything...I suspect it just worked out that way by accident.

On Sunday I was in Oklahoma City with my wife to run her first Half Marathon, and that was a lot of fun. It was interesting to be around that many people out running (easily in excess of 20,000 people), and one of the rare times I actually get to run with my wife. Our schedules and habits (not to mention the 6 year old at home) tend to separate us from working out at the same time, especially since we have no immediate family in the area, so this was a treat. I just stayed with her at her own pace, and was there for moral support and company. It made the whole run a pleasant experience, and I hope to be able to do it again soon. She didn't accomplish everything she wanted to with the effort, but she did finish in a pretty decent time (I believe it was 2:24:35), and was in the upper 31% of all the women in her age group, the upper 39% of ALL the women in the race, and the upper 49% of ALL the finishers regardless of age or gender, so I think she did fine.

Even though this wasn't a major physical effort for me, my body still wanted the day off afterwards, as the knees and ankles felt a bit creaky. As such, I didn't substitute any other activity, but just let my body catch up. After three 6 milers in a row in the middle of the week, things once again felt a bit strained, so I took Friday off and didn't substitute anything else on that day either.

Saturday morning's run after that rest was a real surprise, and nothing short of amazing to me. I went on a new out-and-back route out of my neighborhood, and was quite surprised at mile 4 to hear RunKeeper say that I was averaging 8:23 per mile up to that point. It really didn't feel hard at all, just flowing along. That sort of acted like an encouragement to finish it off well, so I started to pick up the pace, really pushing (although not all out) in the final mile. I surprised myself by completing the 6.07 mile run in 50:05 at an 8:15 pace...the fastest pace I've run at that distance in decades.

As a bonus to that, Saturday's run also put me at a new weekly training mileage high of 38.46 miles ! :-)

Here is what last week looked like...

Day	Activity	Distance (in miles)	Avg. Heart Rate	Max Heart Rate
Sunday	Running	13.34	---	---
Monday	Rest Day	----	---	---
Tuesday	Running	6.24	158	225
Wednesday	Running	6.68	140	154
Thursday	Running	6.13	141	163
Friday	Rest Day	----	---	---
Saturday	Running	6.07	147	167

These are my time and distance totals for the week:

Activity	Time Total	Distance Total (in miles)
Running	6:01:14	38.46
--------------	--------------	--------------
Overall Total	6:01:14	38.46

       

       

Day	Activity	Sets	Reps	Recovery Interval
Sunday	Rest Day	---	---	---
Monday	Rest Day	----	---	---
Tuesday	Dips	5	5	3:00
	Pushups	2	20	1:00
Wednesday	Pullups	4	10	3:00
Thursday	Dips	3	10	3:00
Friday	Rest Day	----	---	---
Saturday	Pullups	20	5	2:00

The introduction of full body weight Dips meant that I eased back (more like almost completely off) of the pushups. I have a power rack in the garage that I primarily use for my pullups, but I also have some dipping handle attachments. So, although this video HERE shows someone doing them with a set of dipping handles attached to a wall, it does demonstrate the form I'm using while doing them for this month's 100X challenge. I've found that they are working my chest and shoulders as much as my arms due to the need to balance as well as to get down to the bottom of the movement where the upper arms are parallel to the floor. It had been a while since I've done them (once again...many years), so it is taking a while to get in the groove.

I have a marathon that I'm considering that occurs in early - mid October, and although I haven't actually made the commitment yet (not signed up), I do plan to start to slowly steer my training in that general direction. At that time of year, there will still be a REALLY good chance of the temperatures starting in the 70's and progressing into the 80's towards the end, so I plan on using the Texas summer to properly acclimate myself to running longer distances in the heat. Since I haven't completed a run longer than about 13.5 miles since the marathon at the end of February, I plan on doing one on Sunday to start to get back in the groove.

Happy Running Everyone !!!