Welcome to the Exercising Club

I don't understand the illustration, but I found this hanging in my school's cafeteria.

 Now that it's Wednesday (well, Thursday) let's go back and talk about last weekend!

Saturday we got bagel sandwiches from the nearby awesome bagel shop, then Dan put them in a backpack, got on his bike, and didn't let me have my sandwich until I caught him 4 miles later and we biked to a nearby park for a mini picnic before biking back home.  I can't believe I didn't even take a picture of the lake we ate next to!

We encountered obstacles like this from our freak October snow storm:

 I carried my bike over the tree toward the left of the picture.

Dan demonstrating proper post-bike, pre-bagel stretching

Because we biked, I did not run on Saturday.  I considering doing my 12 mile long run, but wanted to keep my legs fresh for a 5k Sunday morning.  So I opted to postpone the long run.

Sunday morning we were to meet up with greyhound friends for breakfast before going to a greyhound fun walk/5k.  While our friends would be walking, I planned to do the run.  It would give me an updated estimate of my fitness after 6ish weeks on a FIRST training plan, before my half marathon in 2 weeks.  Also, looking at least year's results, there was only one person in the female 25-29 category, with the average age of 5k participant easily being in the 40s.  I thought this might be my one shot in life at an age group award!

Saturday night I made these pumpkin muffins for our breakfast gathering (I'll post about that another time).

Sunday we had our breakfast, and were running late leaving our friends' house, so we did not get to the greyhound event until 3 minutes after the 5k started.  I could have run it, but as there were about 60 runners, it was just gun time, not chip time.  I may still have been able to place in my age group if I was the only one, but I would have freaked out about starting late.  I decided to just walk with Dan + friends.

At least it was a nice day for a walk.

We also saw horses:

After our walk, Molly (the retired racer) was spent, and helped herself to our bed.

  

I did some speedwork from my training plan to satisfy my unfulfilled 5k urges.  Goal time was 5:20 per 1k.  Since my Garmin is on miles-mode, not kilometers, .62 miles was how I entered my 1k intervals.

The 5  x 1k was my scheduled speed work for Wednesday.  So I flip-flopped the two, and did my long run mid-week.

I was shocked by my ability to pull my butt out of bed at 5:30(ish).  5:30 is the old 6:30, and since I got myself up at the old 6:30 last week, I told myself I could do it.  It was great practice for the 7am Philly half marathon start.  Complete with me not sleeping well.  Somehow I woke up at 3:30, concerned that I had overslept my alarm.  This happens the nights before races too.

This is what I looked like last week before the crack of dawn.  Look how happy Molly is to see my camera's flash.  She does not appreciate her sleep being interrupted, even if she sleeps for 22 hours a day.

This picture feels kind of Blair Witch to me.  Maybe it's just my paleness.

Aside from my first gu being cold, this morning's run went really well! (Have you ever tried that?  Hard to get down!)  I feel much better having gotten my last real long run in before the 20th.  My only remaining "long run" is an 8 miler this Sunday.

Goal pace was HMP + :20 (based on September 18th half, that means 10:24.  If you use some funny math to look at how I've been doing on my speed work (on average, faster than recommended times) and what times the speed work paces correlate with, it might mean more like 10:16 pace.  Regardless of which I use, I think I ran well!

Despite finishing the last mile at a 9:37 pace (which included me stopping to pick up the newspaper before lapping around the apartment again so I could at least hit the 12.0 mark), I still felt like I was holding back at the end.

I'm still figuring out how hard to push during a long run like this.  If I can run 12 miles in 2:01 for a harder training run, I think I can easily shave off :10-:15 per mile on race day compared with my 10:04 HM pace 2 months ago.  

Predictions on what kind of pace I might average over 13.1 miles in 2+ weeks?
 

Who else is running Philadelphia, and part two: the half or full?