28 days and counting

The Cherry Blossom 10-miler is on April 3. That’s approximately 28 days from today, which really isn’t a lot of time considering my longest run to date is 6.5 miles and that was last fall. My work schedule and being sick really got me off schedule. I do have something going for me — my tenacity and my competitive streak. I’m not competing against others; just myself and time. I don’t want to age gracefully by sitting on the sidelines, but am going to fight every step of the way. I don’t mind getting older…I just want to keep challenging myself so I continue growing as a person and athlete.

Tonight, I only had time for a 1/2 hour total workout. To maximize my efforts, I did 75% of treadmill run at 6% incline alternating walking and running. I’m really psyched because I was able to keep up the pace longer during the higher incline than at a 1% incline. Also got in a half mile of cycling. I probably should have done this first, but all of the bikes were taken.

Now that I’m doing more cross-training, I’m starting to see improvement in my endurance. My time for the mile was 13:52 with a best pace of 10:45. It may not be as fast as other people, but it’s still under my 14 minute per mile goal. Plus, this was after a brutal work week from which I’m still exhausted…BUT I got it done. WOOT!

I’m aiming for a 7 mile run tomorrow. I will be my longest run ever. No problem. Left foot…right foot…left foot, etc. Got it!