Intervals and Off-Ice Training

Wow, five posts from me in five days—what’s that all about?  😉  I guess I have a lot to say. Or maybe it’s just that hockey season is over for the moment and there is a lull in baseball during the holiday.

I mentioned two posts ago (ha ha, sorry, I’m behind) that I would talk about the intervals I did on Monday.  I’ve had some folks comment on my interval training, and as someone who was only recently introduced to them, I can definitely understand wanting to hear more about anyone’s experience with them!

I did my first set of intervals last October, but it was kind of unstructured—I didn’t have targets for my pace, and I had just pretty much made up the patterns based on what my friend Renee told me.  They weren’t a ton of fun, but I do think they helped me increase my speed for doing the Free Press Marathon Relay (where I ran the last leg with 4 other runners who were all faster than me).  Once I was done with the relay, I happily put intervals on the back burner.

When I started the intervals of my current training program (the one my friend Katie created for me that’s supposed to get me to a 2:10 finish in Chicago this fall), I had much more structure.  Not only did I have specific distance goals for both the interval and the rest period, I had a target pace.  I was thrilled to find that I was actually able to run faster than my target! That’s a pretty good confidence boost. 🙂  Katie then told me to lower my target…darn it. 😉  I saw the logic, though, and I did my next training at the lower target pace.  Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t as great as my first one, mostly because of the humidity.  Still, I did them and still managed to keep up and not feel like I was going to die (how I felt for my first ones every time back in October.)

My third set of intervals was this past Monday, and I was a bit worried about them, because 1) the temps weren’t great, and 2) they were two 1-mile repeats—yikes!  One mile is a long way to go when you’re trying to be fast.  My target for these was 9:13-9:28…since I believe my average pace to be around 10:00, maybe a little lower on the short runs, I was concerned at how I’d do for a whole mile at that low of a pace.  Once or twice I’ve done a sub-9 mile, but it was in cooler weather, and I always felt like I wanted to die at the end of the mile, lol!

The good news is—I nailed it! Yes, I did, thankyouverymuch. 😀 In fact, I actually exceeded my goal for both miles.

 

 

The first mile seemed kind of easy.  Not really easy, I guess, but definitely not crazy-hard like I remember from last year.  Awesome, right? Well, then I turned around and realized I had been running with a 10-mph wind! Running back was much harder, and I was getting depressed to think that the only reason I was able to do a sub-9 mile was because of the wind helping me.  So of course I had to work extra hard for that second mile to prove to myself I could do a sub-9 against the wind. 😉  And I did! Yay me! It was such a great feeling to have accomplished more than I set out to.  I know that the less-humid weather played a big part, but you know what—I’ll take it!  And you know what else I’ll take?  The reading on my scale this week!

 

 

I lost a pound—hooray!  I’m still three pounds above my goal, but after the long, painfully slow struggle I’ve had for the last 3 months since I injured my knee, when the scale kept going up instead of down, I’ll take a one-pound loss and be happy with it.  I think maybe the added protein and decreased carbs might be helping, so I’m going to try to do that again this week.

Meanwhile, last night, Jamie had his first off-ice training of the fall hockey season.  It was actually the first time he had ever had off-ice training, and I must admit, those coaches worked those kids hard!  We all met at the local high school, and the kids had to first run 2 warm-up laps around the track.  After that, they had to run up and down the bleachers a bunch of times, doing 10 push-ups after each up-down completion.  Dude!  Then, they did a whole bunch of agility and footwork drills for about 45 minutes.  Then, they had to do more push-ups and sit-ups.  Then, they played soccer for half an hour.  I was tired just watching them. 😉 I was impressed that the coaches went right along with them for the most part.  They bowed out of the soccer game, though. 😉

When they first started with the laps, a few of the coaches, who are well aware of Jamie’s running accomplishments, made comments to Jamie, “Go on out there and show everyone how it’s done, Jamie!” and “We’ll help you get ready for your next 10k!”  Jamie is so humble, and he looked a little embarrassed by the attention, but I saw him smile a little, too. 🙂  When they ran the laps, he wasn’t first—there were three kids in front of him, but they were all the “skinny” kids, if you know what I mean…they had much more lean, athletic builds than Jamie, and they were, therefore, pretty fast.  But Jamie was fourth overall, and well ahead of the rest of the pack.  He just ran his pace and finished in a good time.

 

 

Oh, and did I mention that his mom (who had no idea what off-ice entailed) had just fed him a nice big dinner of gumbo right before he went out to run? Ha.  I could tell he was uncomfortable running on that full stomach, but he didn’t complain.  I know he was a bit put out that he wasn’t first (I’ve told you he’s competitive), but I made sure to praise him and tell him how great he did.  Next time, we’ll make sure he eats much earlier, and I know he’ll do even better!  Knowing that at this time last year, two laps around the track would have been a struggle for him, I was really, really proud of him. And I think he was a bit proud of himself, too!  He did a fantastic job on the bleacher runs.

 

 

I can’t even imagine him completing those this time last year!

I ran two miles of laps while the boys did some of their work—and, just like Jamie, I found that having eaten gumbo before a run was not ideal. 😛  I persevered, though, and was glad I had done it.  We had a beautiful sunset to end our evening.

 

 

And with that, I will bid you a blessed Independence Day.  I have big plans for the morning which require me to get up at 4:30 (and I’m not running in a race—crazy!), so I will be going to bed now.  For my American compatriots, have a great holiday, and for my non-American friends, I hope you have a great weekend! See you next week!