Training Week 2: School for the Gifted

Goal: Return to Yoga
Status: Accomplished!

Do you remember the old Far Side cartoon of the kid at the door of the School for the Gifted, pushing on the door with all his might, and the sign on the door says Pull? (if not, you can see it here) That summarizes me and yoga pretty well. For all of my not picking a studio, not making time, not whatevering, it turns out you just do it. You just sign up, go, open the door and do it! Feeling like there was some barrier between me and cross-training was really silly. I was pushing on a door that's really easy to pull open.

Last weekend, as soon as I wrote my Week 1 post, I started reading reviews of different studios near my house, and the search quickly narrowed to one. I bought a 10-class pass, made a reservation for Tuesday morning's Power Hour, and when Tuesday came, hopped on my bike and went to class. I have no idea now why this seemed complicated.

The class, as yoga classes go, was fairly easy, which is perfect for a runner looking to get stretched and strong between runs. And the setting is great. The classroom is on the second floor of a building, facing north. Toward the end of class, you can look out the front window and see the horizon starting to lighten toward dawn. Pretty great way to start the day.

Pre-dawn, as I headed home from class

Speed work Wednesday was a second victory this week. In Week 1, the speed session nearly killed me (ok, maybe that's a slight exaggeration). But this past week, I came much closer to hitting the target paces, and I didn't have a searing headache for the rest of the day. Woohoo! Here are the target and actual paces for my intervals (rests not shown), goal in purple, actual in green:
400: 1:46/1:44
400 1:46/1:41
800: 3:32/3:35
1200: 5:18/5:29
800: 3:32/3:41
400: 1:46/1:48
400: 1:46/1:48

I also figured out why that second 800 is my tough spot. The park I run in is nearly perfectly flat, but not flat, and that second 800 captures the corner of the park with a slight elevation gain. It probably accounts for a few seconds of my over-run there.

On Saturday I headed out for my long run on the Jordan River Parkway with two of the girls from last year's group. They had to be somewhere by 10, so they did the first 2.5 miles out with me before turning around. I ran another 2.75 before turning around, for a total of 10.5 miles for the day. My schedule asked me to do 14, but I thought that was too big a jump up on long run miles at one time, and I think that was the right call. It was a bit brisk when we started out, but once I got warmed up, the day felt great. Lots of sunshine.

The sweaty afterglow of a successful long run

When I got back to the trailhead at the end of my run, I saw this. I love all the Olympics references here. That legacy is such a cool part of this place, and always inspires me when I'm training and come across a memento like this unexpectedly.

I'm feeling good heading into Week 3. Goals for this week: 

• Eat some real food before my long run. My history of not doing this was problematic at last year's Top of Utah marathon, and does not serve me well ever, really. So I'm going to fix it. 
• Get back to journaling my nutrition. I've held steady at 7lb. weight loss, and want to start seeing some progress again. 

Thanks to the few of you who stopped by last week and left me a comment wishing me luck as I get back to training mode! I love hearing from you!!