During my 4th lap at Umstead, a fella by the name of Jimmy introduced me to the Mangum Track Club. Having looked them up, they have a whole bunch of races, a marathon, a 50 miler, (probably going to do the marathon) a 100k, a 24 hr race, a 50k, and I also noticed today, the have a 100 miler.
They also have "The Shirt Run" - here's what it says about that on their website: http://www.mangumtc.org/
Back during the late 80's five guys would meet in the hills of Ellerbe, NC for training runs for marathons. One Christmas during that time, one of the guys purchased 5 shirts. One for each training partner. The shirt was a navy blue shirt with "Mangum Track Club" on the front of it. As the story goes, one of the wives of one of the guys wanted one of the shirts. Well being guys, they told her, you will have to earn it. The "Shirt Run" was born. The shirt run is a 15-mile point-to-point run/walk from Mangum, N.C. to Ellerbe, N.C. Once you finish the shirt run you will receive your Mangum Track Club shirt and you are a member for life. The Mangum Track Club is a fun run crowd consisting of walkers to ultra runners. We do not have dues or meetings and you may be asked to purchase your Mangum Track Club shirt depending on the number of runners that show up for the shirt run. Normally members pitch in to buy the shirts.
I love it! This sounds a blast - in fact, the whole set up sounds a lot of fun. So sent an email asking to be in the next Shirt Run - I am in, and can't wait. It will be on May 23.
Since Sunday's run, I have avoided running to give my ankle a bit of a rest. Yesterday at lunch time, I hit the Stairmaster at the gym. What a brutal, evil piece of machinery those things are. I certainly feel as though it is effective, so I will try to use it once or twice per week. I also did a couple of minutes on the Leg Lift weight machine to work the quads.
Today, I used the treadmill, walking at elevation level 15 for 33 mintes, and set a new record of 2.46 miles.
Here's the tune of the day from my "Running Tunes" playlist. Unfortunately, Youtube won't let me 'embed' the video, so click the link to hear "The Stairs", by INXS - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PmiwzstaHTs - I thought of this track when I was on the Stairmaster on Monday.
Showing posts with label walking training. Show all posts
Showing posts with label walking training. Show all posts
Tuesday, April 21, 2009
Saturday, April 18, 2009
Snakes, flies and a new record
The pups and I went for a 5 mi walk today as part of my ongoing campaign to improve my walking.
We went on the ankle breaker trail at Jordan Lake. It is an absolutely gorgeous morning, (70 ish, and not a cloud in the sky), so that plus the specific workouts I did in the gym during the week meant that I felt like I had a real spring in my step. To put a bottom line on it, I shaved about a minute per mile off of my previous "best effort". I'm pleased with that.
One other aspect that may have helped is the additional protein I ate - not one, but two bugs or flies of some description. Yummy.
I also saw a nice long black snake, and even though I am getting better, snakes really get me close to a panic attack. Now, I know black snakes are not poisonous, and I also know that they are supposed to be good at keeping the poisonous copperheads at bay - but I really don't enjoy seeing them. Thankfully this one was about 10' off of the trail sunning himself on a fallen tree. If he was across the trail, I wonder if I would have U-turned.......
Garmin Data:
Time: 1:12:11
Distance: 4.91 miles
Pace: 14:42 mins/mile
We went on the ankle breaker trail at Jordan Lake. It is an absolutely gorgeous morning, (70 ish, and not a cloud in the sky), so that plus the specific workouts I did in the gym during the week meant that I felt like I had a real spring in my step. To put a bottom line on it, I shaved about a minute per mile off of my previous "best effort". I'm pleased with that.
One other aspect that may have helped is the additional protein I ate - not one, but two bugs or flies of some description. Yummy.
I also saw a nice long black snake, and even though I am getting better, snakes really get me close to a panic attack. Now, I know black snakes are not poisonous, and I also know that they are supposed to be good at keeping the poisonous copperheads at bay - but I really don't enjoy seeing them. Thankfully this one was about 10' off of the trail sunning himself on a fallen tree. If he was across the trail, I wonder if I would have U-turned.......
Garmin Data:
Time: 1:12:11
Distance: 4.91 miles
Pace: 14:42 mins/mile
Monday, April 13, 2009
Smarter use of the treadmill
I am lucky that I work just a couple of minutes away from a very reasonably priced gym ($10/month). So when I am in the office, I take advantage of that during lunch times.
Prior to Umstead, I mainly used the treadmill for just running – it was good cardio, and helped the running muscles, and it was good to just log miles. Every now and then, I would do speed work, and some hill work, but that was it.
As part of my campaign to improve my walking. I put the treadmill at an incline of 15, and walked for the whole 33 minute workout, gradually increasing speed from 4 mph to 5 mph. I am planning to do this workout once or twice per week, and track the mileage, so I can try to beat my own record. That was a tough walk, and I really felt like I had a workout, but hopefully it will help me in upcoming races - I now know that there is always going to be plenty of walking involved.
I always do 33 minutes on the treadmill for a couple of reasons - 1) with a 2 minute warm-up, a 2 minute cool down, shower and getting changed is just about the length of a lunch break I can get away with, and 2) When I first became a member of this gym (a little less than 4 years ago), 33 minutes was my dream time for a 5k run........ (my current personal best these days in 33 minutes is 4.5 miles - that's treadmill miles though, which as everyone knows are way shorter than real miles, but it does indicate how far I have come in that time).
The geek in me forces me to make note of the fact that in the 33 minutes, I did 2.36 miles. A new record (yeah, I know it was my first time, but I can claim it, because I'm in charge of my own personal record book.)
Prior to Umstead, I mainly used the treadmill for just running – it was good cardio, and helped the running muscles, and it was good to just log miles. Every now and then, I would do speed work, and some hill work, but that was it.
As part of my campaign to improve my walking. I put the treadmill at an incline of 15, and walked for the whole 33 minute workout, gradually increasing speed from 4 mph to 5 mph. I am planning to do this workout once or twice per week, and track the mileage, so I can try to beat my own record. That was a tough walk, and I really felt like I had a workout, but hopefully it will help me in upcoming races - I now know that there is always going to be plenty of walking involved.
I always do 33 minutes on the treadmill for a couple of reasons - 1) with a 2 minute warm-up, a 2 minute cool down, shower and getting changed is just about the length of a lunch break I can get away with, and 2) When I first became a member of this gym (a little less than 4 years ago), 33 minutes was my dream time for a 5k run........ (my current personal best these days in 33 minutes is 4.5 miles - that's treadmill miles though, which as everyone knows are way shorter than real miles, but it does indicate how far I have come in that time).
The geek in me forces me to make note of the fact that in the 33 minutes, I did 2.36 miles. A new record (yeah, I know it was my first time, but I can claim it, because I'm in charge of my own personal record book.)
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