Week 11: The hills are alive with the sound of huffing

Run 40, walk 1. Run 20, cooldown.
Brutal. Especially with hills thrown in.
....
.....
And still, I'm thinking I might do the half-marathon program after this is over.

Masochistic!

60 minutes today and I survived!

Gorgeous day with a lovely, lovely spring sun. My group ran 60 minutes for the first time, broken only by 2 minutes of walk breaks at the 10- and 30- minute mark. Kept a pretty good pace throughout. Hooray!

Rustic, super rustic skillet apple pie

Recipe as provided here is nearly perfect. I flubbed the part where it says drop tablespoons of the biscuit batter on top of the apple slices; for some reason I thought any old method will do so I dumped ladlefuls of batter, resulting in The Blobs. To compensate I sprinkled brown sugar on top five minutes before I was to take it out of the oven, and broiled for a few minutes to get a nice golden brown look.

55 minutes and going strong!

So, today was THE day. After a relatively gradual increase in volume over eight weeks we ramped up quite a bit to 55 minutes today. I wasn't sure I could do it. On the other hand, I'm fast learning that you can talk yourself INTO doing something almost as easy as talking yourself OUT of it. So I psyched myself, locked up the dogs, grabbed an umbrella and was out the door, despite the nonstop rain.

A largish crowd showed up for the run and we all did fine! I was amazed that although I felt very tired at some points I was nowhere near the gasping stage -- a sign perhaps that I wasn't pushing myself to the limits, just yet? If so, a good sign. We were all soaked though and by the end my hands were chilled through and through. But I did it, we did it! What a great Sunday. Knowing I am pushing myself out there, moving out of my comfort zone.

Week 8 and volume's up!

We ran 10s and 1s today for the first time, having missed last week's workout. What a blast! Total run time was 40 minutes plus warmup, cooldown etc. I struggled a bit towards the end but didn't really hit the wall, and my recovery was quite fast! My pulse normalised within the one-minute walk breaks. Next week will be even more challenging as the running time increases by 15 minutes and we will be doing 10, 15, 20, 10 with one-minute walk breaks sandwiched between the running. Sounds quite daunting but I'll do my best!

On a roll

You know it's your day when two people compliment your boots, another two admire your scarf and a fifth person enthuses over your teeth.