Hooray! I’m training for something again. I like it better that way.

I made a dumb mistake in calculating when I should start the 8-week training program for the Park Point 5 Miler. It’s 9 weeks away, not 8. I plan to repeat the final week of training, so I guess I’ll have a “taper” for a short race.

It’s raining off and on today so we’ll see when I get out and actually do today’s workout.

Here’s what I did last week:
Monday: 0.9 mile run, 2.9 mile walk, road
Tuesday: 4.4 mile run, road (and then a walk around Lake Calhoun that I didn’t time or log)
Wednesday: Off
Thursday: 3.7 mile tempo run, road
Friday: 4.2 mile run, road
Saturday: 6.5 mile run/walk, trail
Sunday: 5.2 mile run, road
Total Mileage: 27.8 miles

I like this training plan. Since I’ve added warmups and cooldowns and use the cross training day for running, the overall mileage is high enough that I can roll it over into a marathon training plan once I’ve finished the race. I also signed up for another race in the middle, the Midnight Sun Midnight Run on June 26th. It starts at 11:59 PM, which should be fun. It goes along the Lakewalk, which is lighted, and there should be a nice cool breeze off the lake to keep the bugs and humidity away. I needed another race between now and the 5 Miler to gauge my goal pace, and to try once more to get under 36 minutes. The obvious choice would have been the William A Irvin 5K the weekend prior, but I don’t know, running the 5K that accompanies the marathon I planned to run feels a little off. This race will also be smaller and less of a cluster.

This week of training felt great, other than Saturday’s excursion. I traversed the Superior Hiking Trail from the Magney Snively parking lot to the base of Ely’s Peak and back. I don’t say I “ran” it because there was little running involved. I was having trouble keeping my heart rate down on the uphills and used the flats and downhills to recover. It is a beautiful trail, and I really need to go back, because I need to get better at trail running. I finished with an overall pace of 2.5 mph, which is sad. Since I am considering running a trail race instead of the Mankato Marathon, I have to improve on that performance. I plan on designating the “cross training” day of the workout plan to a trail run. It’ll be more than 60 minutes, for sure, but it’ll go a long way toward my overall endurance and fitness for whatever fall race I run. I can always scale back if my legs feel dead.

My calves were so tight on Sunday that walked for my warmup (1 mile) and cooldown (.25 miles, basically once I hit 5 miles I walked the rest of the way home), but other than that I felt amazing during the run, despite the humidity. I monitored my heart rate the whole time and I didn’t have a single mile that averaged over 140 bpm. I did walk up the hills I encountered in order to accomplish that, but I am still pretty excited about the paces I was able to hit: 19:22 (warmup + stretching), 15:25, 15:29, 14:47, 15:06, 18:13 (pace for the last quarter mile cooldown). That is a massive improvement for me, aerobically speaking. I just wish it had translated better into my hike on Saturday.

The forecast for this upcoming week looks amazing for training. Wednesday is the only hot day and none of the days look horribly cold. It’s about time!