Skip to main content

A Great Training Week

Last week was (you guessed it) a pretty great training week and for only 2 reasons. The first reason would be my 5.2 mile run on Tuesday. Fleet Feet Sports started a Tin Roof Tuesday running group with a great little 5 mile course.

The last time I ran 5 miles it took around 1:09 (now do you believe me when I say I'm slow?) which I was pretty happy with particularly because I felt great when I finished and hadn't run that distance in quite a while. This run was also with my sister which made it really fun and kept it motivating but I decided to push a bit more than normal. It had been a rough couple of workouts leading up to this one so it was really important to me that I had a good run. I wish it was always as easy as just wanting it to happen. Well when we finished I checked the watch and to my surprise and delight, it said 1:06! To those in the running or any other endurance sport world, shaving 3 minutes off your time for a particular distance (especially when you actually added a bit to that distance) is a damn big deal! That was a generalization, maybe it's not a big deal to everyone, but it should be and to me it totally was. I was so super excited about it and even though we were the last ones back we were actually the slowest of the distance group which means not the slowest overall! There were people who did shorter distances AND were running behind me. Not to mention my first mile split was in the 10:30 range. Not sure why I've suddenly been unable to contain myself in my first miles but hopefully I can remedy that soon. Regardless, I felt so great after my run that I put on my slippers and forced The Colonel to take a picture and keep taking pictures until I looked skinny. Luckily, the second take worked.

Image

So Wednesday I was a bit sore but thought a good bike ride would shake those muscles loose a little as well as work some new ones. I was also a bit delirious after reading all of the race reports from my favorite bloggers about Ironman 70.3 Augusta so I mapped a 10.2 mile bike ride through Seneca for after work.

This ride was a bitch. No short about it. It was an absolutely beautiful day and there's no reason this ride was hard other than I was just tired. It got so bad that as I was cruising past my car on my way out to the second lap I literally stopped my watch and got off my bike. I was ready to pack it up. But then I really thought about it and I had really spent my whole day thinking about this 10 mile ride, there was no way I could just stop. Now let's remember that my last 10 mile ride was literally over a month ago during the Go Girl Tri so I really wasn't expecting anything spectacular. It was also my first real ride on my new bike so I was riding cautiously, not to mention that my bike handling skills really aren't so great since I'm a beginner and I decided to ride some hills that had a history of leaving me in tears. All of those things combined left me not expecting much in terms of the time department. During the race I did my 10 miles in just over an hour, maybe 1:01 and this time I finished up at 56:13. Again, improvement. I'm most proud of this ride because I really really really didn't want to do it. I wanted to quit and give up and go home and eat klondike bars but I didn't! Another thumbs up day. This week considering a 12-15 mile ride. Who knows.

Comments

  1. Rennay I am so proud of you! Great job shaving time off your run!

    You are fantastic for getting back on your bike! It's so hard when you've mentally thrown in the towel, I am so glad you saddled back up! Great, great job!

    You look fantastic in that photo! You can really see your hard work paying off!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This is a great update, I'm glad you didn't quit and go home... you had a great ride and you had a great run days before that. You're hard work is paying off and it only took me two pictures before you liked it :D off topic, but is the colonel nickname because of my haircut? hahaha what made you want to call me that? I'm not in charge of anything at home =P

    ReplyDelete
  3. That is amazing progress! 3 minutes off your run and five off the bike ride! congrats girl! I am super proud of you! Keep on keeping on!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why I Hate the Ironman

I figure it's about time to put this out there and I'm pretty sure if you know me really well, you won't be surprised by any of what I have to say. I've been having a lot of issues lately. I've been working hard with my counselor to determine who I really am and what brings me true joy in life and it's been surprising, frustrating, difficult, fun, exhausting, enlightening, exciting and hard....to sum it up in a few words. I spent some time in Puerto Rico back in March and finally got back into doing some writing while I was out there. It wasn't anything long and certainly not anything particularly newsworthy but it made me feel good. I enjoy writing. When I was young I used to write short fiction stories on my mom's computer whenever I had free time and though a lot of them remained unfinished, they were always fun for me and surprisingly effortless to compose. Blogging has never quite been the same as my true writing and I've been working hard t

A Sad Announcement

It is with a very heavy heart that I make an announcement. Because this is where I spend so much time recapping my races and weight loss struggles and successes, it seems that this is where the announcement needs to be made. I told The Colonel earlier this evening when I got home from school close to tears and I need to make it official before I change my mind. I will not be doing an olympic triathlon this year. Sounded much more serious than that, didn't it? Well all joking aside, it is serious to me. In my mind, I'm now a quitter. I'm a wimp. I'm giving up on my goals and soon will start giving up on all of them. This isn't the case of course but for now it's really hard for me to be rational. I am a goal setter and rarely has there ever been a goal I didn't *eventually* reach. So for me to seriously and actually "give up" is heartbreaking. I'm also abandoning my quest to lose 40 more pounds this year. It would be great if it happened, but I

Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure 10K Race Recap

Wow, what a title right? Although I also could have titled it the greatest race of my life. Wanna know why? Yeah I thought you might. The week leading up to the race wasn't a great one. Stress at work, general grumpiness etc. etc. etc. So I really wasn't expecting much as far as performance but I wanted to get a 10K in really badly before the marathon relay this Saturday so I thought What the hell and signed up. The atmosphere at Komen events is like none other. Pink everywhere and people....so...many...people. For someone who hates crowds (i.e. ME) there are few things that will lure me to a crowded place. Races just tend to be one of those things. Anyway, there was a great survivors parade and all kinds of booths and music and general funness. What there wasn't plenty of was parking. Which I guess is the norm for an event of this caliber. Survivors' Parade Great Ladies I never got the chance to meet... Seriously packed at the start! Autumn Alexis, The Colonel and I g