Thursday, September 16, 2010

Mixing It Up

Today was my first track workout and my first attempt at speedwork. I’m pretty pleased with how it went overall. Of course, I went a bit too fast in the 800s and ended up cutting the last one to a 400 (I was supposed to do 3X800). I did my recovery 400s as walks with an average pace of 14:24. My average per mile pace on the 800s was 11:10 (10:58 on the first one and 11:22 on the second). Next time I will slow that down a bit. My training schedule has me doing speedwork in a couple of weeks and I’m supposed to do the 800s at just under a 12 minute/mile pace. I’ll try to be better about hitting that next time.

I really enjoyed running on the track. I’m sure it might get boring on a regular basis, but I liked the feel of the track and the fact that I could run without having to think too much about distance or crossing streets and alleys. After having a bus almost run me down the other day, I could really get used to not having to worry about vehicles on my runs. Too bad there isn’t a track close to our house.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Family Race

Tomorrow we are doing the one mile walk at the Chicago Lung Run together as a family. A friend of ours was recently diagnosed with lung cancer, and we are walking in a group with her. All of the runs I've done have also been fundraisers for good causes, but this is the first time in about ten years since I've participated in an event where the connection to the cause is more personal.

Alex is beyond excited to be doing a race. He knows that Mommy runs and has been to some races, so he has an idea of what the event is. When we told him that we were doing the "race" together the first thing he said was "Me too?" His face exploded into a huge grin when we said yes.