Thursday, October 27, 2011

training to finish, probably won't win

So I've been following my happy little schedule. Mostly. I get at least the run workouts in and maybe a couple others throughout the week. Training is going well, I'm very happy with my endurance progress. I never set out to be a speedy racer, but just wanted to set out to finish. In this first month of training I've gone from a 15 min pace (which is the minimum to not get kicked off the course on race day) to a comfortable 13:35 pace. This weekend is a 6 mile run, if I maintain my 2:1 run/walk splits, I'll be happy. If I finish at a 13:35 - 13:45 pace, I'll call it a roaring success.

Hubs and I joined the Y so I'd have access to a pool for the cross train days. When we signed up we got a complementary session with a trainer. The poor guy that had to put up with each of us for our free half hour kicked both of our respective butts. We both hurt so good after that first workout with him, we signed up for 12 joint sessions with him. WHAT?!?! So now we're paying someone to hurt us. That just doesn't seem right.

We do one 30 min session of strength training and one 30 min session of cardio. Tonight was our first cardio session. The Arc Trainers he wanted were taken, so to the treadmills we went. He set the incline at an uncomfortable height then set the speed at 6 mph. In case you aren't good at math, 6 mph is a hecka lot faster than my 13:35 pace. It's actually a dead sprint. So off we went, one minute sprint, one minute rest. I eventually whined my way down to 5.7 mph, still a dead sprint in case you were keeping track. It was awful and I hated him. Unfortunately he didn't get the memo that I don't plan on WINNING this race but just looking to finish, bonus points for not being last.

I'll be so happy this weekend when I can go at my slow and steady wins the race pace even though it'll be for 3 times as long as our workout today.

What do you do to prepare for a race?