One Hundred.

I was wrong in my last post…I had 10 weeks until my next half marathon, not 9.

Last week…or almost 2 weeks ago now… (Let’s call it T-11 weeks):
I ran an easy 3 miles, ran my 5 tempo miles ending with a brisk uphill walk, and ran 13.5 miles for my long run. I also hiked 6ish miles.  Long dog walks not included.
Totals: just under 22 miles of running, 6 miles of hiking.

This past week (T-10 weeks):
Tuesday I did a hilly 4 mile progression run (started at 9:20 pace, finished at 8:08 pace). 
Thursday I did a 5 mile not-quite-tempo pace run, with a mile long climb in it (avg pace 9:02, ranged from 1st mile at 9:35 to as fast as 8:33).
Saturday: shorter long run: 8.11 miles, avg pace in the  low9:20s.  This is where I want my long runs to be again if I’m looking at the Run Less Run Faster plan (HMP + :20 or HMP + :30).  Doing my long runs with the running group this summer, I just enjoyed the runs and was social – which meant running anywhere from a 9:30 pace to a 10:30 pace depending on who I was running with and how much we were talking.
Total: 18.07 mi.

In addition to “running” to prepare for this next half marathon, I am taking on the 100 pushup challenge (Dan is too!) I I’m pretty sure that being less than a year out from 30 I’ve probably passed my peak for muscle mass. I read somewhere that you lose 5lb of muscle mass every decade from 25-35.  So if that’s the case, I began losing muscle mass before I started running.  I was doomed from the start.

Back to the pushups.  They require little: a floor and yourself.  So I figure I should learn how to do them well.  Enter the 100 pushup training program.  In 6 weeks, they claim I’ll be capable of doing 100 pushups.  Bring it.  I’m starting off pretty low, being able to complete 13 “good form” pushups consecutively before giving up.

And while I was on that site, I found 200 squats (I intentionally overlooked the programs for situps and pullups, but I may come back to dips).  I have way more lower body strength than upper body strength, so I hoped this would be easier than the pushups, yet still a challenge.  I’m all for increased leg strength if it will help me in the final stretch of a race. I remember doing at least that many plus other leg exercises when I was going to boot camp classes last year.  I read the intro… “most of you reading this won’t be able to manage 20 squats.  Actually, I'm sure many of you can't even do 10.”  Challenge accepted.  I did the initial test for this one and found myself at 60 nice deep squats with no rests. 

I was feeling so proud.  Until the next morning. And Saturday morning. Oh, yep, and Sunday morning my leg muscles were still a little tight (hamstrings) and sore (around the knees).  Now that I have had a good week and a half to recover from the initial exhaustion test, I think I’ll begin that program, and plan accordingly around track workouts so I have muscle left to run them fast.

“How many pushups can you do? …I guess you can only do one, really.”
“Yeah, one is all you need.”

Bold question of the day: Do you do pushups? How many can you do?