Getting Serious

My marathon training is starting to get serious. I am officially running 3x a week and the Tuesday night run actually involves intensity training, called tempo training. That means we run faster than our easy talking pace (which we do on our long runs Saturday morning) but not too fast that we can't talk at all. Don't worry if this isn't clear because I'm still trying to make sense of it myself (and DO it!)

For tempo training, we run around Queen's Park (a beautiful shady park behind our provincial legislature). This is the same place where my running partner and I do our weekly runs together. We have to run a total of 8 laps around Queen's Park and each lap is .8km. We do the first 2 laps an an easy pace, then the next 4 laps at the faster tempo pace (with a short recovery walk in between each lap) then 2 more laps at the slower running pace to cool down. The first night I could only do 3 of the 4 fast laps. Then I just did my cool down (total of 7 laps). Next week I will do better but I didn't get home till after 9 which makes for a long day on a work night.

Yesterday (Saturday) I ran 11K for the first time - YAY! And at the end I ran all the way up the hill in High Park for the first time without stopping - DOUBLE YAY! I was pretty tired and a fellow runner kindly gave me a lift all the way home. Thanks Karen!! I also got a lot of great visualization tips from Lynn - the Marine Corps route will be up on my wall for inspiration starting this week. Plus, I really miss my running partner - Hardish I can't wait to see you on Sunday!

Last night we saw Pirates of the Caribbean At World's End. It was fun but long. I think 1 lap around Queen's Park is longer than Keith Richards was in the entire movie. Even with my 2 hour nap in the afternoon I couldn't wait to hit my pillow at 11.