My Journey With Weight Loss – Working On My Speed

The one good thing about my husband retiring and being home permanently is that now I have someone to walk with each day. I promised him I would slowly get his walking up to more of a training level so for right now we are doing about an hour a day. It’s not at my usual pace but that is ok, I need to give him some time to work himself up to my level (though he says running is never going to happen). What I like best about it is having someone other than the dog to talk with on those walks.

Coach gave me my training schedule this week and I was like really, that just seems too easy compared to what I have been doing for the last several weeks. I am doing 4 5k runs, a 14k run (as opposed to 18k) and a day of hill intervals. But then I read her final comment, this will be a tough week so listen to your body. Ok, time to break this training down a little more.

Yesterday was the same as I do every Monday, a nice 5k run, no big deal just getting warmed up for the week. Today was back to 10 intervals of hill training. I haven’t done that for a while and I put a lot of effort into the intervals and I admit they felt pretty good (note, I really do like the hill intervals as I feel I get a lot out of them). Tomorrow is another 5k run however, we are going to kick it up a notch. About 1/2 way through the run I will do a set of fartleks. Ok, I’ve done that on other runs so I’m not too concerned. Thursday will be the 14k and as instructed I will run it at a steady pace avoiding the trap of starting off too quickly and not having the energy to finish. Friday is the 3rd 5k but this time there will be 2 sets of fartleks. Finally on Saturday I will do my last 5k and it will include 3 sets of fartleks.

I get that this may not sound too bad and it didn’t when I first read the instructions. Then I realized, by time I hit Saturday there is going to be a significant amount of sprint training (fartleks) going on. I do think this is the right thing to do as I am really not concerned about endurance and being able to run 21.1k, hell I am almost there now. What I have been worried about is being able to do the run in less than 3 hours (again, the streets will be only be closed for 3 hours so you want to be done before traffic starts again). Coach’s goal is that I am finished in 2 1/2 hours (not so sure about that) and so now we are going to focus on building up my speed.

Really, I am game to try this speed training as not only will it help me to run faster for longer, it also helps to build my confidence which I will need to be successful at my 1/2 marathon.