It has been a crazy 2 weeks in my house. So much going on at the moment that I was unable to blog at all last week. Sorry for that. Anyways, in spite of the craziness, I only lost 1 training run over the two weeks. I don’t have tons of time to write this post either. So, it’s going to be a little more succinct than usual. Let’s look at the two previous weeks…

Week 10

The week started off okay. I was very proud of myself for getting out for a Tuesday evening run! This hadn’t been happening for a few weeks. So, it was great to get out an get in my run! I went with the run 30 seconds, walk 90 seconds for mile 1 of this run. Then, switched up to a run 30 seconds, walk 60 seconds for the rest of the run. Since it’s getting dark outside and I can’t figure out if I can have my Garmin watch use a back light, I’ve decided to use both my Garmin Vivo Active HR watch and the Nike Plus App on my phone. It’s an interesting experience because the two don’t exactly sync up well.  Here are the splits via Garmin…

 

As I was running, I wasn’t very aware of how each mile was playing out on the watch. I did do some comparisons when I was stopped at traffic lights. In mile 2, I could tell that the two tracking systems were veering off from each other. So, I knew I’d have to run longer than the Nike Plus App was giving me. 

This is what Nike was telling me. As you can see, I was getting a different picture of this run from Nike vs. Garmin. Here’s what it looked like at the end of the run..

 

Nike…

Garmin. There was more than a tenth of a mile difference.

On Thursday, I made it out again! Score! Two mid-week runs in the same week! The temps were about 5 degrees warmer on this run vs.the day before. Still, it was very comfortable. I did the same run/walk intervals as the day before with some slightly slower results.

The splits show this difference. Although, I am pleased to see that, I had exactly the same time in mile 3 as the day prior! Hey, you’ve got to take the victories where they come.

Likewise, the splits on the Nike App were slower as well. I really worked hard on this run. Right from mile 1, the times were looking slower and I knew it. Some days, you’ve just got to be happy with the fact you finished a run without surrendering too much time. I’m proud of this run because it is one where I could have thrown in the towel in mile 2 and been content to finish with a 50 minute or more time. However, I fought all the way to the end with this run to keep me as close to my time from the day before as I could.

On Saturday, I didn’t make it out to the track for my run because we had Colton’s birth parents over to our place. It was the first time we had them to our apartment. Everything went really well and we had a blast hanging out with them!

On Sunday, Colton turned 6 months old! I seriously can’t believe how much this kid has grown. With all the chores we had to get done, there simply was not time to fit in that track run. One thing I forgot to mention is that we had our final “supervised” meeting at our adoption agency on Wednesday of this week. In it, we received all the information we needed to start the finalization process in the adoption of Colton! It’s nice to see the finish line. But, there is still much work to get done.

Week 11

On Monday, I had my first rehearsal with the Disney Employee Choir for the 2016 Candlelight Processional at Disneyland. I know they had Candlelight at EPCOT as well. But, I sing in the choir that performs at Disneyland for our version of Candlelight. The video above was done in 2012 when Disneyland attempted to do 20 days of Candlelight. It was one and done kind of deal. This year will mark my 9th year of singing with the Disney Employee Choir at Candlelight and my 12th time singing Candlelight overall (I sang in Candlelight with Azusa Pacific University when I attended APU). I love singing in this choir and love singing the Candlelight music! So, Monday was fun times indeed!

On Wednesday, I headed out to take on another mid-week run. This time, I made some changes, though. At the suggestion of a blog reader, I decided to change my run/walk intervals to a run 15 seconds, walk 45 seconds. Jeff Galloway has changed his recommendation on the walk breaks from a 60 second walk break to a 30 second walk break for a little more than a year now. When I’ve tried the run 30, walk 30 before, it really didn’t help me at all. After so many months of using 60 or 90 second walk breaks, I was nervous about moving to a 45 second walk break. So, I thought I’d try this new interval out on a 3 mile run vs. a 4 mile run. I know it’s not that much different. But, for me, this is what got me to try it out.

Here’s how the splits broke down with the Garmin watch. These aren’t the splits I’m watching while running. However, I’m trying to keep my comparisons even. So, the Garmin information is what I’m going to be using from here on out. My finish time wasn’t great It wasn’t horrible. But, it wasn’t great either. Part of the challenge of this run was convincing myself that I wouldn’t crash and burn with the shorter walk breaks. At the end of the run, I did feel better than my previous mid-week runs. However, it’s been a while since I ran the 3 mile route, it’s hard to compare.

Nike information vs….

Again, I’m putting this here just to show the difference.

On Thursday, I went out for 3 miles again using the 15/45 run/walk ratios. My goal is to do this for at least 2 weeks, or more, and evaluate it then. Part of running is mental, part is physical. Sometimes, we can do so much more than we ever dreamed possible once our mind cooperates. As you will see…

There was a slight improvement overall. Although, the improvement came in mile 3. That’s actually encouraging. I should mention that I ran the last quarter-mile with a run 30, walk 30 interval. I was quite proud of myself for being able to finish this way and finish strong!

On Friday, we headed off to the Edmund Edelman Chhildren’s Courthouse to file the first set of paperwork to finalize Colton’s adoption!

There were signs about no video equipment allowed inside. So, we refrained from taking pictures inside. However, here we are with the paperwork and our case number stamped on it! The next time we come here, we will get our court date!

On Saturday, we had our final adoption training at our adoption agency. We still have to maintain our training hours all the way through the finalization. So, since I don’t anticipate that we will have a court date by the end of October (when we will have to be re-certified to Adopt), we went for the final training hours. This didn’t allow me to have the time to run 13 miles, as scheduled. Due to high temps for the weekend and knowing that Saturday would wear me out, I made the decision to move my 13 mile run to this coming Saturday. In it’s place, I headed to the gym on Sunday.

Instead of heading to the track for some speed work, I went on the treadmill instead. On Saturday night, I looked up the speed I’d need to finish each 400 in 2:35 or less. That speed was 6mph on the treadmill. So, that’s what I did. I ran 6 x 400 on the treadmill at 6mph when I ran. My walk speed varied between 3.5mph and 4.0mph. It’s been a while since I ran intervals on a treadmill. So, I was not entirely sure I’d get all 6 finished. As I went along, I kept telling myself that I could make it and I would. I took each 400 as it came and did my best not to worry about the rest.

After this gym workout, I’m thinking that I need to find time to get on the ‘mill for these 400’s every week if possible. I’m leaving the elliptical machine out for now. When I trained for the 2015 Los Angeles Marathon, this time doing 400’s on the treadmill and the weights I was doing seemed to help a great deal. So, I’m going to do my best to get to the gym once a week.

In closing, did any of you follow along with the pics coming from Paris at the Inaugural Disneyland Paris Half Marathon Weekend? It totally made me wish I could have been there. Both the 5K and Half Marathon looked like they were amazing!