Half Marathon Training - Week 5 - Wednesday

Today was a good day. I finally had a day with technology working wonderfully. I had a spending splurge when my iPod Touch broke down a week or so ago. I had enough of the Nike+ not always working and this and that so I bought a new iPod Nana which you know already(later I realized I did not need as my iPod Touch started working flawlessly). The other purchase was the Garmin Forerunner 305 watch. This watch is way too cool. I tried it this morning on my 3 mile easy run to see how it worked and felt. I love it. It keeps track of the my heart race, mileage, pace time, total time, calories, and it actually records my running route via GPS. I got home, plugged it into my computer and was blown away by how it charts my heart rate zone and how much time I spent in each zone. I need to learn about my heart rate and where I should be when running as this is something I have never considered before. I can plug and chart my route on Google Earth. I have much to learn, but from the first run I love this device.

Anyways, I ran my 3 mile run in 26:31 burning 528 calories, and an average heart rate of 149. It felt good to run nice and slow and just take it easy. The humidity was crazy as it had just stopped raining. It stormed like crazy all night. I had moisture flying all over the place while running. I completed this easy run after doing a tough circuit at the Y right before.

We performed sets of 1 minute of the following exercises. This was tough. We completed one round and called it good. Will probably try two rounds next week.
1. Standard Push-up
2. Wide Front Pull-Up
3. Military Push-Up
4. Reverse Grip Chin Up
5. Wide Fly Push-Up
6. Closed Grip Pull-Up
7. Decline Push-Up
8. Diamond Push-Up
9. Dive Bomber Push-Up
10. Back Fly

I figured this circuit is good when preparing for the Chicago Urbanathlon. I would really like to combine parts of this circuit among a run. I will try to put something together and give it a try next week. I would like to devote one day a week to prepare for the Urbanathlon. I don't want to devote more as I am really focusing on the half marathon, but I don't think adding some strength exercises among one of my training runs will hurt my training. I need to prepare for the obstacles as well. I will figure that out later.

Today was a good day. My motivation is slowly coming back as is my eating habits and all that good stuff. It is so easy to fall off the bandwagon and so much harder to get back on. I have stay devoted. Nothing worthwhile is achieved easily so these are just more obstacle for me to overcome as I learn the ropes of training. Keeping aiming for you goals and stay on track. Find your motivation and remind yourself that you are doing a good job. Time to drink some coffee and play some games with the kids.