Last week I was hoping to find a new adventure to tell you about. That was not the case. There was just lots and lots of running loops around my house. The nice thing is that it is flat, making it easy to settle into a rhythm. The bad thing is that it is boring looking at the same things for so long. Since I pass three churches, I have now decided to refer to these laps I take as the “church loops.” This led me to the title for today of “Church Loops, Pizza, and PROGRESS.” (Don’t forget to check the Food Highlight to read about some great pizza).
Here is the link to the video for this week’s blog.
MAF Update:
I want a million dollars! Sounds crazy, but I thought I should give it a try because last week I whined about not seeing results. This week was all about results. I spent a good part of the week doubting my GPS watch. Wednesday’s map was a mess, but the time was correct so I just adjusted the distance. The rest of the week’s maps were the same so I guess everything is actually legitimate.
That brings me to my “wow” moment. I saw some major results! Looking at the run paces might not make it the easiest to tell. To make it easier to see, I ran the exact same amount of mileage in 9 minutes less. 9 MINUTES! The weather this week was ideal. It will be interesting to see if the times stay down when the temperature heats up a bit this week. Also to note, I moved my 5 mile run to Tuesday permanently. It was supposed to be Wednesday, but I switched because of religion class and really like it.
Here are my run distances and paces for the rest of the week: (20.2 total miles)
Tuesday: 5.02 miles at 7:57 pace
Wednesday- 2.52 miles at 7:17 pace
Friday- 2.52 miles at 7:27 pace
Saturday- 7.62 miles at 7:38 pace
Sunday- 2.54 miles at 7:32 pace
Food Highlight:
Pizza, pizza, pizza. I love to eat pizza. Over the years, I have really started to prefer to eat homemade pizza. My wife has found a cookbook, Traditional Meals for the Frugal Family, that has a great garbanzo bean pizza crust. It tastes great, does not cost a lot to make, and is much healthier than delivery pizza.
Workout Highlight:
This round, the highlight is not about a workout, but what I do between workouts. Each morning before my workout or stretch routine, I roll my legs on my Rollga foam roller. I did a whole blog post about the great use of this roller. When this roller was just starting out, they had them at a triathlon for $20 (now it costs $50). I bought the “Hard Foam Roller.” The guy told me that a car could run over it and it wouldn’t lose its shape. I assumed that he was just being a salesman, but this roller has lasted for years and looks perfect, unlike my previous one that caved in after a short time. If you are in the market for a great foam roller, you need to check out Rollga.
Wisdom of the Week:
**Disclaimer…I promise that this was the planned post before I saw the results for the week>**
The Words of Wisdom for the week are “trust the process.” My original intent was to talk about the necessity of being patient with the process and letting the work take care of itself. When the process is research-baked, and has stated that it can take a month to see results, I needed to be more trusting and just go into this week enjoying putting in the work.
We live in a world that wants instant gratification. Not everything happens immediately. Patience is sometimes need to see measurable results. Just because this week was surprisingly successful, does not mean that everything will keep getting better and better. I know that different variables might cause some fluctuation in my progress, but I will continue to work for at least three more months to see just how much base mileage I can build in this phase of my training. Trust, trust, trust. That is the key.
That’s just a bit of my experience. Have a great week.
