Just 2 miles

Since I am training (again!) to be able to increase my running mileage from 3 miles to 6 miles (hopefully it will only take me 8 weeks to do this), I only ran 2 miles today. AND, since I only ran 2 miles I told myself I was going to see how much time I could cut off of my miles. Not a lot, but enough to tell a difference. AND enough to feel a difference. 🙂

Usually when I run I do so at a SLOW pace of about 12 1/2-13 minute miles. YEAH-real slow. But at least I’m running-that’s what I tell myself!

Today I ran 2 miles in 23:02 which comes out to about 11 1/2 minute miles. So I felt pretty good. I mean, I felt good about having run at that pace-not that I felt good while I was running! 🙂

Here is my training schedule, and I skipped week 1 and have replaced a 3.75 with a 4 miler this week.

WEEK 1: 2, 3, 2, 3, 3.25-Totally skipped using the schedule for this week because I just ran what I had been doing.

WEEK 2: 3.5, 2, 3.5, 2, 3.75-This is the week I am on and so far I have done 4, 3.5, and 2.

WEEK 3: 3.75, 2, 2, 3.5, 4

WEEK 4: 3.75, 2, 4.5, 2, 4.5

WEEK 5: 4.75, 3, 3, 2, 5

WEEK 6: 5, 3, 3, 2, 5.5

WEEK 7: 5, 3, 3, 2, 6

WEEK 8: 6.25, 3, 2, RACE DAY

I am using this training program to be able to run a continous 6 miles, NOT to run in a 10k race. That will have to wait until next year. I’m only planning on doing 5k races this year (hopefully 1 each month). Of course, I might have to repeat weeks once I try to run more than 4 because let me tell you. 4 miles is a KILLER right now!

This is probably the best way to describe my facial expression when I have run 4 miles (which has only been twice now).

LOL!

So far this week I have run a total of 9.5 miles in 3 days. Tonight I decided that YES! I am going to start doing SOME kind of strength training. I started REAL easy-just to say I had done something. I did some squats, some bicep curls and tricep thingies with my teensy weensy weights. I did 50 crunches. Whew! We’ll see if I can get up early enough in the morning to do it again (Have I mentioned I am NOT a morning person?). 🙂 I’m going to try to do this little strength training (and I really need to plan/write it out) about 2-3 times per week. Tomorrow I’ll try to post some before pictures and then after about 30 or so days I will post some after pictures. Here’s to hoping they look different! 🙂

Goodnight!