I started this past Saturday with my long run. The FIRST plan calls for three runs per week, plus at least two days of cross-training, which isn’t too different from what I have been doing lately just because of schedule constraints. This plan, however, calls for much faster paced runs than what i had been doing, and my long run pace needed to be adjusted accordingly. Normally I would run around 8:00/mile pace for long runs and my easy runs, but FIRST calls for running long runs at Half Marathon Pace + 20 seconds, closer to 7:20/mile than 8:00. I was worried I would feel too tired by the end of the 9 miles to keep that pace, but I was surprisingly energetic by the end.

Then last night I had my first “Key Workout #1″ which was 5 x 1000m @ 5:58/mile pace. The tough part about this for me will be keeping track of my pace on the treadmill. I’ve found that my Nike+ iPod system isn’t terribly accurate on a treadmill, especially at faster speeds. Most of my intervals which were at a much faster pace, didn’t show as much faster as they should have. So I guess I’m not really sure how closely I hit the pace, but at the very least I know I got a good workout in, and it was better than the 5 or 6 easy miles I would have done otherwise.

I’ll probably spin tonight on our new spin bike (that’s another post altogether), and tomorrow night is my first FIRST tempo run. I’ll try to update here as often as I remember to, in case anyone is interested in how the program works.

I also decided to start the One Hundred Pushups Challenge again. I went through it once before, and it definitely got my pushup max higher, but I never got to 100. So this time I’m hoping to do it right, and not move on until I get the proper max, and hopefully end up with a max of 100 pushups at once. The plan has you doing between 5 and 8 sets of pushups, with a structured amount of rest in between sets. It gets progressively higher, and is aimed at getting to 100 in six weeks. I’m not sure I can do it in six, but Day One last night already went better than I remember from the first time through. I hit all of the first four sets, and maxed out at 20 on the fifth set, where the goal is just nine. I’ll try to at least post my max every day I do it (Mon, Wed, Fri), if not some more thoughts on how it’s going.

So now that the race is less than a week away, I just have one more easy run tonight, and a short tempo run on Wednesday. I may try to get in a few easy miles Thursday or Friday as well, just to keep from getting stale.

The 400m pool swim start, besides taking almost 40 minutes to get in the water, was fairly uneventful.  I got a good start, and stayed pretty consistent when I wasn’t trying to get around slower swimmers.  I got out of the water, and felt pretty good, a quick look at the clock had me estimate my time around 9:00, which I thought was pretty good for my fitness – official time 8:07.

It’s a decent run from the pool to the transition area, and I was a bit out of practice, so the T1 time was a bit over 4:00.  Then on to the two-loop bike course which had a few hills.  It was also pretty windy this morning on the course, which hurt heading south, but felt great coming back north.  Altogether, I was able to average a 19.7mph speed, with a finish time of 41:42, seven seconds faster than last year.

T2 was pretty uneventful, I switched shoes, grabbed my hat, and was off running in just under 2:00.  As soon as I started running, I knew I was in trouble.  Usually my legs feel sluggish getting off the bike, but my Garmin shows my pace right in line with a normal 5K time.  Today, I felt extra sluggish, and I was barely faster than my normal easy run pace.  I really struggled to stay under 7:45/mi pace for the first half mile, and was able to slowly pick up the pace.  My third mile, I finally felt good and got into the low 6:00/mi range.  There was another runner over the last quarter mile or so who was trying to kick it in around my speed, so we kind of paced each other in, and my final 5K run time was 22:03.

Overall, I was satisfied with my effort, I just envisioned losing time on the swim and bike, not the run.  I finished in 1:18:07, for 249th place overall, out of over 1,700 finishers, and 25th place in my age division.  Considering I was not properly trained for it, I’ll definitely take that.

I only did pushups and Ab Ripper on Wednesday, so I will be restarting Week One of the Hundred Pushup Challenge tonight, followed by Ab Ripper X. This is my first recovery week for half marathon training, so it’s just three days of easy mileage.

I’m following a modified Runner’s World SmartCoach training plan to get myself ready for the Oak Brook Half Marathon on Labor Day. I’ve taken the SmartCoach printout, and changed it from four to three days a week (Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday) due to time constraints, but kept the same mileage. I’m also going to be modifying the paces with the help of the Daniels Running Formula.

On the days I don’t run (Monday, Wednesday, Friday) I’ll be doing the Hundred Pushups Challenge again. Once I complete my pushups for the day, I’ll do the 16 minute Ab Ripper X (part1 part2) routine from P90X. All of that should help me regain some of my core strength, which should help with my running as well.

I also hope to start using this blog again as a training log, to keep track of how each of my runs are going.

Now that our son – Gavin William – is 8 weeks old, my wife and I have both been able to get some workouts in. We started a couple of weeks ago with some P90X Yoga, which I despised when I went through P90x, but is much more bearable when not doing it alone. We also did Legs and Back, and Shoulders and Arms. I’ve been trying to get a few runs in, and have also gotten in some time on the stationary bike.

I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle at the end of March, so I’m going to try getting in some quality running workouts over the next few weeks as the daylight lengthens. My PR for the race is 34:08 (8K), so ideally I’d like to beat that, but I’ll have to see how much time I have for training to see if that’s a reasonable goal. I’ve got 8 weeks until race day, and the longest I’ve run so far this year is 10K, so I’ve got some work to do. But I feel like I’ve maintained a decent level of fitness, so hopefully it’ll come back quickly. I’ll try to make some more regular updates as I hopefully run more frequently.

I like the idea of just taking a half hour to do some strength training a couple of days a week, and knowing that I can now get a much better workout in that half hour than I would have 3 months ago. I’ll probably do a lot more running, with some cycling thrown in, and some maintenance strength work. And I know I’ll keep doing Ab Ripper 2 or 3 days a week as well – still plenty of progress to make with that.

I lined up race morning with the 6:00 pace group (they had signs out), and waiting for the start. It was a fair amount of people, so I wasn’t surprised to not move right when the gun went off, but I was surprised to find people walking with strollers lined up in front of me. Apparently they just let people stream in from the sides, and everyone got in at the front, making it extremely difficult for me to get a good start. I spent the first half mile weaving in and out of people, and only being able to go 7:30-7:45 pace. When I was finally able to pick up the pace, I was pretty steady at about 6:15, but the damage had been done, and my first mile was 6:55. After that, I was in the 6:00 range, and kicked it in hard to cross the finish in 19:45. Had I been able to start unobstructed, I could have easily cut off another 30 seconds, and maybe a minute – which would have been a PR.

I’m not going to complain about it, but it is good to know that P90X has helped me improve my running. Now I just need to take this gained strength, add in some decent run training, and start kicking some serious butt in the spring.

Also, this is now my final week of P90X. I’ve done two days so far, tomorrow is basically and off day, then two more days, and off day, and I’ll take the Fit Test again on Saturday. I’ll post all of my results then, hopefully there’s some decent improvements.

Week 12 ends on Thanksgiving, and since I usually run in place of Kenpo on Thursdays, I’m looking at running the Dan Gibbons Turkey Trot in Elmhurst. It’s a 5K, and I’ve heard good things about it. Plus it raises money for PADS and the Chicago Anti-Hunger Association – something good for Thanksgiving. The only thing I’m worried about is being able to give it my all in the race if I go all-out with legs and Back the day before. My legs are usually pretty sore the morning after that, so I guess I’ll just have to Suck It Up and Bring IT!