Days 5 and 6

I woke up with some shin pain Friday morning and decided that it would an "extra" cross training day instead of an easy run. I ended up riding the stationary bike for 20 minutes and lifting weights for thirty. This morning I helped build a deck on my first ever Habitat Build. After several unsuccessful attemps at driving nails, I became the official "go-fer" of the group.

I have been toying with the idea of running the half at next weekend's Carmel Marathon, which is about an hour and a half away from my house. I would have to drive up the night before since there is no race day packet pick-up. It looks like an awesome race, but there's an issue. No one else I know is running, DH doesn't want to go, and my mom has other plans for the weekend. So I would have to go alone and stay in a hotel by myself, something I am too much of a ninny to have done before and that I'm a little scared by. What would you do?

Days 3 and 4

On Wednesday, I did 1.5 miles on of speedwork on the treadmill, including my new favorite 'mill routine:
 - Walk for one minute at 3.6 mph
 - For the two minutes, increase the speed every 20 seconds
 - For the next three minutes, increase the speed every 10 seconds; if you're naturally not quick, like me, your ending pace will be a sprint
 - Walk for one minute

I did that rountine first, followed by a half mile at 1 mile race pace (6.4 for me), followed by the first routine again. DH then wanted me to join him for a run/walk so we did another 2.5 miles.

Last night, I did 2.3 miles at "goal marathon pace": 4:1 run/walk with the run at an 11:30 mile pace. I followed that  some ab work, lifted arms and then did something I haven't done in forever - swam laps. I am not at all a strong swimmer, but the Y has recently added flotation belts to their pool equipment, so I put one on and was able to do six laps (no idea what the distance is - help, swimmers!)  in a slow twenty minutes. By the last lap, I was beat.

I've been working tweleve hour days all week, but get to take some much needed comp time off this afternoon to do some shopping. I'm also working this weekend, but have the morning off to do a work-sponsor Habitat for Humanity build.

What are you weekend plans?

Day 2: Cardio Kickboxing

I'm planning on running 4 days a week during marathon training (which seems to be the max I can do with out getting hurt), and on filling my off days with crosstraining. The summer semester of exercise classes started at the local Y this week, and I decided to get a flex pass, which will let me try as many classes as I like between now and August.

After some upbody weight lifting and a short run/walk, I heading to cardio kickboxing, a class I was super excited about. How hardcore does the name sound? I was ready to be an exhausted, sweaty mess. However, only two other women came into class, and one of them was a 1st-timer like me. Before the class started, the instructor told us her "style of kickboxing was turbojam, or dance boxing" . . uh oh. If I want to dance, I'd have gone to Zumba. The hour long class had lots of lunges and booty shaking, but very little kicking or boxing, and intensity level was pretty low. Overall, underwhelming, and not a class I'll be back in.

Happy National Running Day today - how are you celebrating?

Also - DVC is Disney Vacation Club, a disney-owned timeshare program.