Speedwork

It was suggested to me, to help work on my walking pace, to start doing speedwork in the shorter walks each week. Basically, try to walk faster than usual for 5 minutes, then slow your pace way down until your heart and lungs feel like they are feeling better, then try it again, for as much of the 4 miles as possible. With less than 2 months now til the half marathon, I def need to be working on this, along with the really long distance bumps once a week, so I'm going to start on that tonite. Heck, I figure if I already dropped almost 5 minutes in two months, there's a good chance of dropping another couple of minutes at least. So that was my plan for tonite.

I realized very quickly that I had made several key errors though. #1: We went earlier than usual, at 6, rather than at 730. My hope was that we could go before dinner and get it over with. #2: We were doing this speedwork, in my neighborhood, where there are inclines. #3: I miscalculated how hot and sunny it was. When we got home, I thought it was cloudy and cooler than it was, so I wore a tanktop (though I did use sunscreen). So I did 5 easy minutes, then 5 as fast as I could, 5 easy, etc. Needless to say, by the end of the first mile I was whooped. I stopped the speedwork at 1.5 miles and walked normal. I decided to finish up and go home, which would be 2 miles total. At the 2 miles, I was passing my alley, but decided to suck it up and walk one more mile normal to make 3. I'm quite proud of myself for that!! (Oh and tomorrow, we're going to try it again at Bob Woodruff where its flatter!! lol

I'm also starting to look for new walking shoes. I want to get them within the next 2 weeks so I can have them broken in by the half. I've already gotten a suggestion for these Easy Spirit ones, and I have contemplated going by Luke's Locker or Run On one day at lunch to get fitted. But if you have any good suggestions, please let me know! I need to get on this soon. My current ones, at 7.5 miles last weekend, my feet were HURTING, in a way that they had not for any previous walk. They need to be fairly affordable and in wide widths.

Ok on to food for today...breakfast got switched up a bit. I had a Fiber One oats and apple streudel bar (YUM!). Lunch was a Lean Cuisine 3 meat deep dish pizza, and then for an afternoon snack I had most of a banana and a fat free yogurt. Dinner was a slice of cheese right after my walk while cooking, and then a Birds Eye 3 cheese chicken skillet meal...yummo! For a lateish snack, I had half a baggie of Pirate Booty to end my day at 1204 calories.

Output: a 2.97 mile walk that took us 56 minutes. I was warned that it'd be slower at first with the speedwork, and I'm ok with that. Then I did about 5 minutes of slow stretching to finish my hour.