WJR - 11

I did the WJR 11 at the gym today. What is the WJR - 11? It's walk one lap, jog one lap, and run one lap for 11 sets. Felt good. Each lap at the gym is 1/11 of a mile, so I did 3 miles altogether. I had a couple of laps at under 30 seconds, but most of them were in the 33-35 second range.

Long run...

7.5 miles in 1:30 hours. I concentrated on form and kept my hr at < 140. (OK, except for a couple of hills.)

Short workout today...

Today was just suppose to be a short workout, so I headed out to the track. There were actually quite a few people there. I wanted to run 2 4 minute half-miles, and they were much tougher than I thought they should be. I think this may be in part due to some residual tiredness from the race on Friday.

Total distance was probably about 4 miles, much of it I walked for recovery intervals.

Basketball on Saturday

Cross-trained today by playing racquetball and basketball with my son. Played to 20 in basketball, and won the game by hitting a 2-point shot for the winning basket. 21-19!

Didn't know the rules to racquetball, so we did the best we could. Had to do some research when we got home. It's a fun game! We will have to play it more often.

3 5Ks - still short of the goal...

I have a goal of running a 5K in 25 minutes. I've tried 3 times, and every time I've fallen short. I'm disappointed, but I'm not about to give up.

My three races have been: 1) a run in Plano, Texas with the Plano Pacers (June 25: 26:30), 2) the Evergreen Freedom Run (July 4: 27:30), and 3) a trophy series run in deKoevend park (August 5: 27:38 (app.)).

The root problem, I believe, is training consistency. I can run the pace, but I'm not quite physically able to sustain it and I'm even further away from maintaining it psychologically. In the case of the last race, I had two training breaks of 3-4 days that through me out of a rhythm. In the race, I ran the first 1.5 miles at approximately goal pace, but lost concentration and walked for a couple of minutes, before running the last 1.1 miles at about 18 seconds above goal pace. I don't think it was just a matter of not enough effort, though. I ran the last portion hard on a section that was mainly downhill, and couldn't hit goal pace.

This time I've made up a training schedule for a race on Labor Day (5280 meters, so my goal is 26:24). I will be focusing on eating clean, training consistency, and mental toughness. I suspect that clean eating will make some difference in that I will be about 5-8 pounds lighter.

I'm going to also incorporate a weight-training regimen of about 10-15 minutes (no more!) in the morning on workdays to train my upper body and core.

I'm confident my plan will get me to my goal. Now it's time to execute!