Resolutions for the new year, and a treadmill workout

Happy 2013! Our New Year's celebration was quiet. We got the little man down to bed at a decent time and then we watched a documentary on Netflix called Deep Water. It's about a weekend sailor who decided to compete in a first-of-its-kind round-the-world sailing competition in the late 1960s. The ending was totally not what I expected; I couldn't believe I'd never heard of this guy before now.

We made it to midnight, but barely. Apparently we were not alone. As I checked Facebook, I saw a lot of "It's only 9 p.m. but I can't stay up any longer and by the way I'm officially old"-type posts. 

Resolutions: Do you have any? Or anything you want to do/change in 2013? My only resolution at this point is to keep up the activities and habits I took up in the last part of 2012:

• Continue going to Xtend Barre classes 4 times a week (I continue to love, love, love this class... Who knew I'd grow so fond of ballet and Pilates?)
• Find my next race. 5K? Half marathon? Trail run? Not sure yet, but I'm hoping that I'll decide on something close to home, and relatively soon.
• Finish up my 30-day vegan challenge! I'm on Day 16 (I think), and so far, so good. My only slip-up was when I ordered a salad at Panera and discovered too late that it had feta cheese on it. My least favorite cheese! Argh. I hate wasting food so I ate it anyway. More on the Vegan Challenge in the next few days.
• And lose a few pounds. I guess that one's new, but I don't want to get too caught up in thinking about it. I'm using the Lose It! app on my iPhone to track my calories and workouts. More on that in the coming weeks, too.

*  *  *

I'm one of those runners who is not too keen on running in supercold weather (and by "supercold," I mean anything less than 30 degrees F - since moving to the South, I've become a winter wimp). I ran on my treadmill instead and made up my own interval workout as I went along. I was pretty happy with it. There was enough variation to keep me from getting too bored. This would be easy to modify based on your own moderate baseline pace:

Easy Does It 60 Minute Workout:

* 5 minutes walking (moderate effort)

* 5 minutes 5.5 mph, 2 minutes walking

* 5 minutes 5.6 mph, 2 minutes walking

*5 minutes 5.7 mph, 2 minutes walking

* 5 minutes 5.8 mph, 2 minutes walking

* 5 minutes 5.9 mph, 2 minutes walking

* 5 minutes 6.0 mph, 2 minutes walking

* 1.5 minutes each of 6.0 down to 5.5 mph (9 minutes total)

* 4 minutes walking

Toying with the possibility of a 50K?

Several months ago one of my favorite running buddies told me that she was interested in ultrarunning. My husband is an ultrarunner, so I told her she should talk to him about it, and she spent hours looking at the various websites and blogs he recommended re: long distance training and races. She got hooked. I encouraged her to go for it but thought to myself, "No way in hell am I running anything longer than a half marathon." (I actually did run a full marathon once, but it was a really long time ago and I didn't train properly. Painful.)

But a seed was planted. Then it was cultivated by several simple changes in my running life and personal life, and by my natural penchant for challenging/torturing myself:

• I started running with a group. Almost everyone in the group is naturally faster than I am. Although I am still a lackadaisical runner when left to my own devices, and although I often feel like I am on the verge of puking during our group workouts, I can tell that my pace has improved significantly over just a few months. 

• Running with other people has stripped away a lot of my natural social inhibitions and anxiety (with said people). In other social and professional situations, I find myself trying to be whoever I "need" to be to fit in. That's a long-held habit that I am working to break; it's not conducive to developing solid friendships because people never really get to know me (in fact, I barely know who *I* am in those instances). But when I run, I'm myself. I'm so focused on keeping up and simply getting through the workout that I don't have time to think about how I'm coming across. And sometimes, not thinking is a great thing. I've started to form solid, sincere, and supportive relationships with my running partners. (I'm not saying everything is always hunky dory. I struggle with friendships. But these glimmers of being able to "be real" with people have been encouraging.)

• I started running outside on a more regular basis. Running on a treadmill is fine for me: I don't usually mind the monotony, and it gives me a chance to listen to music and kind of zone out. But running outside is physically way more challenging. It's also less predictable and therefore way more interesting.

Making these changes leads me to wonder what else I am capable of doing when it comes to my running. And now I, too, find myself thinking about longer distances. I'm toying with the idea of training for a 50K with my afore-mentioned running friend. True, she's speedier than I am, but we share the same drive to challenge ourselves, and we work well as a team. It would be a way for me to push myself as a runner and as a way to strengthen bonds with someone I think I'd really like to know better. 

I think a 50K is doable, especially if I aimed for a race in spring 2013. I could train over the fall when the weather is cooler and have something to look forward to other than school-related stuff. And if we tacked on a couple of extra days, it might be a good mini-getaway. If I used my frequent flier miles, I could do it on the cheap.

Question: Does anyone have a suggestion for a good spring "starter" 50K in the U.S., preferably one that is at least partially on trails?

Turkey Day Race Plans

I'm planning to run another 5K on Thanksgiving, which is less than 4 weeks away. Considering how hilly Saturday's race was, and considering that I managed to improve my time anyway, AND considering that the Turkey Day race will be a lot flatter, I can't help but want to improve my time even more.

I'm addicted. I know. I will stop soon.

I've come up with a training schedule adapted from Hal Higdon's intermediate 5K training plan. This week's schedule looks like this:

Monday: 3 miles
Tuesday: 6 x 400
Wednesday: 3 miles
Thursday: Rest
Friday: 4 miles fast
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: 6 miles

Running is a good distraction.

Successful 5K

The 5K was a success. I managed to run it in 29:10, which - given that I usually jog on a treadmill at a pace of ~11 minutes/mile - I'm proud of. From the moment the gun went off, I tried to push myself. I identified people who seemed to be holding steady and stayed near them. Every few minutes I'd pick someone who was just a bit faster and follow them.

The course was fairly flat, and most of the inclines were downhill. It was kind of hot for mid-October, though. By the middle of the race, the sun was blazing down and temperatures were ramping into the 70s. I'd much prefer running in cool, cloudy, 40-60 degree weather.

By the last 0.2-0.3 miles, I was pretty worn out and had that worrying "It's possible that I could throw up any second" feeling... But I focused on breathing and tried to maintain my speed. As soon as I saw the finish line, I broke into a sprint. I like sprinting at the end. It makes me feel like I've truly given the race my all.

My immediate thought upon finishing was, Head towards the bathroom in case breakfast comes back up. Puking four feet from the finish line in front of dozens of people seemed like a non-option. But my queasy stomach settled quickly, and I walked over to the tents to check my time and grab a post-race banana.

I'm already planning the next 5K. There's a big one about a month from now that looks like a lot of fun. In preparation, I think I'll work on ramping up my base speed. I'm also going to do some casual speedwork once a week. I'd love to break 29 minutes in the next race.