I just felt like running

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

I usually don't enjoy Halloween...it always ends up weird and sort of searching for plans. As a kid, it was a full out blast due to an overabundance of sugar and dressing up. Since then, as I got older, I found it necessary to come up with "cool" plans. Now? Never fear, the 5K is here!!

What a wonderful way to start a holiday! With a fun and easy run. And through a historic Kansas City cemetery! It was really a blast. Nice people, funny costumes, laid back atmosphere, and my best time yet for 3 miles (ish). 3.1 miles in 32:51. I'm real happy about this. Especially since I have been training at 12 min/mile. I also monitored my heart rate while running and I think I'm in a good place. I've discovered my resting heart rate to be 68 in the mornings and during my run today the highest it got was 170. (It was also cold out). Most of the race I was sitting at 150. Within a minute of finishing the race I was at 120. I think that's a good fall. By the time I got to the car it was 95 and home back down to the seventies. I am not exactly certain of my max heart rate, but I'm guessing it's somewhere around 197. 170 might be a little high? No? Maybe not. It was after an uphill section so I'm probably being a little paranoid.

So time to plan out week three of training:

Sunday--walk 35 minutes

Monday--2 miles

Tuesday--cycle 35 minutes

Wednesday--5 miles

Thursday--rest

Friday--2 miles

Saturday--walk 35 minutes

EXCITED!!!

Hips and Knees

Today I found a great hip stretch/muscle building exercise on Runner's World:

Lie on your side on the floor. Bend the underneath leg up until the thigh is at 90° to your body and the lower leg at 90° to the thigh. Use the upper arm to stabilise your upper body by placing your hand on the floor. Prop your upper body up on the under arm with a bent elbow. Ensure that the upper leg is taken backwards so that it’s in line with your body or just behind it. Pull your foot and ankle up until it feels locked and straighten the knee. Lift the leg slightly and turn the whole leg inwards so that the toes are pointing down to the floor. Lift the leg until it is parallel with the floor. From this position lift and lower the leg, ensuring that the knee remains straight, the foot locked up and the whole leg is turned in with the leg in line with your body.

Lift the leg until you feel an ache in the side of the pelvis towards the back. If you don’t feel this ache after repetitive lifting, the leg is too far forward. Try starting with 20 lifts and build up by two lifts every two days until you can do 50 lifts comfortably.

This worked wonders!! I had a little bit of soreness in my hip after my four miles yesterday so I turned to the web for an answer and I found it! I feel so much better today than yesterday after my run and I don't feel sore in that spot anymore.

I am looking for some knee strengthening exercises if anybody has any great ones, let me know!

PS also almost injured myself when I saw a wasp on my window in my bedroom. I FREAKED out, plus I had just started changing so I was like half naked sprinting out of my room when I lost my footing and ALMOST fell. Whew...so scary, if only there was a bug on the wall...oh wait. hm.

Rest tomorrow, RACE Friday! I am dressing up as Forrest Gump in the running outfit...red bubba gump shrimp hat, yellow smiley tshirt, and perhaps a beard. I don't know if I'll have time.

HOWDY

Well hello out there! Instead of updating my facebook/twitter everyday with boring accounts of my running progress, I thought I would create a blog that way if you want to really know how my training is going you can follow this blog. Otherwise, you won't be annoyed with interwebs updates :)

For those of you who don't know I ran a relay leg of the Kansas City Marathon about two and a half weeks ago and was able to see some amazing athletes at the finish line of the marathon. I was inspired. I was blown away by the endurance and training necessary to complete such a task. I decided that I wanted to train. Not just to finish a large and oftentimes unattainable feat, but because training for marathons and half marathons forces the individual to commit to a goal and each day to work towards that goal. As I approach the end of my masters program (sort of), I can't imagine a better time to work on commitment, productivity, and prayer. All of which (I believe) will come in handy and be absolutely necessary to finishing both my thesis and completing the half marathon in February.

I registered last week for the Huntington Beach Half Marathon. The race takes place on Super Bowl Sunday, starts nearby the pier and takes me 13.2 miles around the Huntington area right next to the beach. The race is extremely flat with the steepest incline for 3/4 of a mile at 6%. I'm super duper excited for this!

Last week I ran 9 miles with a long run of 3 miles. So far this week I've run 4 miles, will run 3 tomorrow, rest Friday, and randomly I decided to register for a Halloween 5k here in Kansas City on Saturday. So that will be a total of 10 miles! PS I need ideas for a costume to run in on Saturday. They really want everyone in costumes of some kind, but I'm having trouble thinking about what to choose so that I don't have problems running in say, a huge pumpkin outfit.

I'm relatively new at running, so if you notice anything that you have opinions about or would like to share any tips, please feel free to leave a comment. I am following an online training program provided with my race registration.