Wednesday Workout Update

Yowza, I don't know if it was the hills, or the miles, or the combination of both, but my legs were feeling that 9 mile run all day on Saturday...and even into Sunday as well!  Whatever crazy person who chose that route (disclaimer...that would be me) was not being very kind to our running group.  Sure, the race we're training for has some hills and therefore we need to practice them, but this was tough.  I'm thankful that I was doing the intervals because honestly, I know I would have walked up those hills had I not been on the 2:1 schedule.

Still, I have to say that I'm really, really pleased with how much better the long distance runs are going for me.  Running intervals isn't easy once you get a couple of miles in - even though our overall pace looks slow (because we're walking at least 4 times each mile), when we are running, we're running at a pretty fast pace.  But I'm doing it, and I haven't been plagued with the "I hate this, I want to quit" moments like I was last fall.  It's really nice to finish a long run and not feel bad about my attitude.

By the way, our group is back to running out of our regular meeting place - while it was fun to run with the local running store owners, that part of town is really crowded with traffic and it's not as enjoyable.  The official USAFit training program is over, but we still have access to the routes on Map My Run, so I've been picking one and posting it on our Facebook page, and one person drops a couple gallons of water along the way so we can refill our water bottles - it's worked out well.  Honestly, it's just fun to start out together - most of us end up separating out within the first half mile, but the camaraderie is there, and it's great to finish and compare how we all felt during the run.

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Tomorrow is the last day of the Planks-A-Lot challenge.  Not going to lie - this one has been tough for the the last week!  But, I am proud to say that I've done each and every one (a couple of times it's been close to midnight, but I've squeaked them in), and my abs and arms are thanking me for it (that is, when they aren't screaming in protest).  Did anybody else do this challenge?  I know Julia has posted about it - let me know in the comments if you did, too.  As for after this month, I plan on keeping up with doing them, but I think instead of doing one really long plank, I'll break it up into two shorter planks - maybe 45 seconds each? 

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The park where Jenny and I do our Tuesday morning runs at is also where a couple of running classes from the local colleges meet.  We were laughing yesterday during our run, because every time one of the coaches would call out to her runners, we'd do what she said - mostly it was "backs straight!" - not sure if she'd said "sprint" we would have done it, but hey - free training!  And yes, it did remind me of that scene in Bridesmaids, where the two main characters were sneak working out behind a tree at an outdoor boot camp!