Long Run (12 Miles) – Sep 12, 2008

Today was the long run for 12 miles. My longest run so far was 10 miles. This would be a new challenge!

I reached the White Rock late 30 minutes late. The entire Dallas Running Club team had already left L. But I decided to go alone and do the 12 miles. After a long time, I ran while listening to podcast (iPhone). I am not a big music fan and most of the time run while listening to some random podcast.

I ran the first 6 miles in 57 minutes beating my old record of 61 minutes. Then I walked for about 3 minutes. Then started again and did the next 3 miles in 30 minutes. I was mostly drained out by now since it was very hot. So, the last 3 miles took about 37 minutes. I was disappointed by the last 3 miles since it is was much below my average. But hey..I hit a new record for 12 miles J. Moreover, I was not really pushing myself for the last 3 miles since I didn't want to hurt myself. In hindsight, that was probably a good decision since I had some cramps over the weekend and I could have hurt myself if I had pushed the last 3 miles.

Here are the stats from the Forerunner:

Date	Day	Activity	Type	Miles	Time (HH:MM:SS)	Avg. Pace (min/Mile)	Avg. Speed	Calories Burnt	Avg. Heart Rate
6-Sep	Sat	Running	Long Run	12:03	2:09:14	10:44	5.6	1575	163

Strength Training – Sep 4,2008

Today was another day of upper body work out. One of the big challenges in Strength training workout is to keep track of the kind of exercises that you can do for the different body parts. This can help you in keeping track of the weights and increasing the weights slowly. It also helps you in planning what you want to do when you go the gym on a given day.

I created a spreadsheet which has one tab with the stretching exercises (Gym_Stretch) and another one which you can use for logging your exercises for different body parts , sets and reps.

http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=pp1hupWlF1C6PRNSvZbnRbQ&hl=en

 

Interval Training – Sep 3, 2008

There were only two people from Asha that showed up for the Interval training today. Since we have the "Laugh out Loud" event coming up on the weekend, many people were busy with planning for the event. I met a girl, who was a cross country runner, at the track. She told me that she had some injury and was recovering from it and looking for a running group. We started our interval training with a one mile warm up, then did 4 x 800m with a 2 minute break's in between. I did the first 800 in 3m 30 sec ! Then the next two were in 4 minutes and the last one was in 4m 15 sec. Then we did a 2 mile cool down.

Here are the stats from my Forerunner.

 

Date

Day

Activity

Type

Miles

Time (HH:MM:SS)

Avg. Pace (min/Mile)

Avg. Speed

Calories Burnt

Avg. Heart Rate

3-Sep

Wed

Running

Interval

5.1

0:45:10

8:51

6.8

667

160

Strength Training – Sep 2,2008

Today was a good day to get into some more serious strength training. Tue and Thu's are the strength training days for me. Usually you get benefit if you give one day break since it takes at least 24-48 hours for the muscles to rebuild. I finished reading the book "Book of Muscle" and it was helpful in figuring out a strategy for the work out's over the next one year. I am beginning to realize that I have a weaker upper body strength compared to my lower body. It's not so surprising since I have rarely given the upper body a work out.

I will post more on the stretching and my upper body routine later !

Long Run – Aug 30,2008

Today's long run was relatively a short one (7 miles). I am little puzzled on why the distance goes down during the marathon training but I guess this is part of the scientific process to get the body acclimatized.

I reached the White rock lake 5 min late. My pace group had already left. Since I wanted to catch up with them, I started to sprint for the first half mile at 7.5 min/mile. This was a blessing in disguise as I finally was able to reach my goal of finishing the long run below the 10min/mile which was a long standing psychological barrier :) I am going to switch my pace group from next week to 10min and below for the marathon.

Woo…Hoo..this is one small step towards reaching my goal for the marathon J

Here is the log from the GPS:

Date	Day		Type		Miles	Time (HH:MM:SS)		Avg. Pace (min/Mile)	Avg. Speed	Calories Burnt	Avg. Heart Rate
28-Aug	Thu		Interval		6.01	1:00:00		10:00	6	720	160

Interval Training – Aug 28,2008

I missed the Interval training with the Asha group yesterday evening since I was on a business trip to Phoenix. So, I decided to run in the Hotel gym in the morning.

Log of my Interval Training:

1 mile of warm up at leisure pace – 12 min/mile

8 * 800m at 2 minutes faster than my usual pace (10min/mile) i.e. at 8 min /mile i.e. 4 min for each 800m

1 mile of cool down at leisure pace – 11 / mile

Since I didn't have my GPS, here are the stats from the Cardio machine at the Gym

Date	Day	Type	Miles	Time (HH:MM:SS)	Avg. Pace (min/Mile)	Avg. Speed	Calories Burnt	Avg. Heart Rate
28-Aug	Thu	Interval	6.01	1:00:00	10:00	6	720	160

 

I was thrilled to reach my long term goal of completing 6 miles within an hour at a decent average heart rate.

Weight Training and Ice Skating Class 3 – Aug 26, 2008

In the morning, I did some weight training. I am going to keep track of the exercises that I am doing from the next time on. I am also reading a book on how to do the exercises for the various parts of the body. "The Book of Muscle" . This is a good source of how to do the warm up for the strength training, the specific exercises for the various parts of the body and it also gives a regimen to follow for the upper body. The best part is the pictorial representation for each exercise. I will post some excerpts from the book in the future !

The ice skating training in the evening was great ! I was able to skate on the ice fluently. It's amazing what 3 classes can do to your expertise level. Of course, it helps to have a great instructor. I have not been doing much a practice other than during and after the class and that's just once a week. I am thinking of buying some roller blades to do my own training on the road J