Over the past week or so, I've been doing a lot of "lasts" in prep for the half. Last Wednesday was my last 1/4 mile repeats, Thursday - last run/lift double, Saturday - last pace run, Sunday - last long run, etc. Today was my last tempo run. As I've mentioned before, I have utterly no sense of pace, and now that the weather is cooler, runs feel about 8 zillion times easier, and I've been running a bit faster. It's one of those things I figured would happen when the weather cooled off, but even knowing that, after a summer of slower than I really expected running, I was beginning to wonder if I hadn't lost a step somewhere along the line.
Well, maybe not. I put what felt like a normal effort into my tempo run this morning, and finished in what for me was a relatively blistering pace (low 8 minute miles). So that was kinda cool. Also had a great karate class last night; got to spar with sensei for the first time in a while, and I could tell he was having fun. We really got on a roll there. Also had a good session with sensei J this morning. Nice when things are going on all cylinders!
I'm still a bit up in the air about Insanity. I've told sensei I'm not committing to doing the whole program; the timing is just wrong. But, I AM free to take any of the classes any time, so I might just do it when/if I feel like it and catch a full rotation some other time, when it's scheduled more to my taste. I really do want to give it a go, but this just isn't the way I personally would care to do it. So my plan for now is to take a recovery-ish week after the race, go easy until I feel antsy (which may only take a couple of days, but whatever), and in that time sort of figure out how I want to prep for the trail race. I'm thinking 1) hills and 2) offroad, and since my offroad/trail runs around here are pretty much flat, I might have to find someplace else to do a few runs. I'd like to do weights 2 - 3 times a week, and I'll probably continue with the FBB workouts with a few minor mods (sub in harder ab work - swiss ball crunches? srsly? - sub back hypers for cobra, make the giant sets, super sets, because they'd otherwise be too hard to set up at my gym). I have to think some on how much running I think I'll need/want and decide from there how many weight workouts. Not something I'm going to do today.
Had my first test yesterday, in Psych. Think I did pretty well! And now I have to bolt. Maybe more later, maybe not!
There's a lot of interesting commentary around Insanity on the boards right now, if you are paying any attention to them at all. I was doing the rotation as written but I've since switched to a CLX rotation with Insanity worked in as my cardio. Maybe it's just me, because I am a desk jockey for the most part, but it feels a little more balanced.
ReplyDeleteI'll be interested to hear what you decide to do and how that works out. People do report back that it does wonders for endurance.