Week of January 7th

Following the training methodology from Bob Glovers book " The Beginners Runners Handbook". For those who which to get started running I highly recommend the book, it has loads of information from training tips, nutritional information and even types of shoes.

This week I've done 3 runs in preparation for my long run on Saturday, this Saturday I plan to run 13 miles with my son on his bike, we will see who both of us do!

January 7th - 4.78 miles, 9:04 per/mile 43:26, the big hill kill me today, but had my best mile 7:42.

January 9th - 4.71 miles, 9:06 per/mile 43:03, tried a new trail, had a pretty big hill, but did OK.

January 10th - 3.57 miles, 8:25 per/mile, 30:12, nice easy run, this will ensure I am ready for Saturday.

Got in my 10 mile run on Saturday

Final stats

10.03 Miles

1:34:16

9:23 pace

Felt great except the last 2 miles but I was able to increase my speed towards the last 1/2 mile. Next weeks long run will be 13 miles. I had all my toys for this run, the Ipod, with the armband, and the belt with the water bottles. I only filled up two bottles but was not enough I will use 3 for the next run.

A difficult run yesterday

Well I was a bit disappointed with today's run, but maybe I should not be. Just to give you a little background of my neighborhood. I live in El Dorado Hills, an area east of Sacramento and what is considered the foothills of the sierras. My house is at the top of one of the hills in EDH, ~ 1200 ft. Every direction out of my house there is a hill, so I used Google Earth to map my elevation changes on yesterdays run.





My house is @ 1188ft officially,

after making a left out of my house you run up the hill to about 1222 @ 0.2 mile mark, then you exit the community out to the main road and run down a hill to about 1100 ft. Then it remains pretty stable till about 1.5 miles when you drop to 820 ft. pretty quickly, ( not great on the shin splints) that is the low point of this run. @ about the 2.5 mile mark the climb back to my house starts pretty quickly from 820 ft to 1010 ft, I would say all in about 0.5 miles. so that is almost a 200 ft climb in less than 0.5 miles @ 2.5 miles into this particular run, is pretty tough on me, not sure how it rates in term of hills. At least it provides excellent hill training.





In the end I finished my 4.5 mile run @ a 9.10 pace which is higher than what I would like to be running. Saturday is the 10 mile run if the weather clears up.

Monday & Tuesday

Monday and Tuesday of this week ran 4.1 & 5.17 miles, kept pace of ~ 8:45 per mile which is not great but not bad considering the crazy hills in the area. This is really the first time in that I've tried to run two straight days. Today I woke up a bit sore and will take the day off, still hoping to put in about 5 miles tomorrow in preparation for my 10 mile attempt on Saturday.

On the eating front, I have started to focus more on carbs, focusing on a high carb breakfast and lunch, we will see if that improves my performance and reduces my weight further as I still feel I could drop another 10 lbs.

Happy New Year!!