Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta

Week One of Training: Successfully Completed!

It was a great start and I'm ready to take on week two. I think I'm really going to enjoy incorporating speed and hill workouts into the schedule simply because of the variation. It makes training more exciting...I never thought I'd look forward to a hill workout, but its kinda fun! Of course its hard, but it just feels so good to complete a good, quality workout like that. So here is my week review:

Highlight of the week: first long run of 10 miles. I was kinda of nervous about it because I hadn't run that far in a while, but it went off without a hitch. I got out to Shelby Farms around 7:30am and the weather was awesome! The run was just really enjoyable and reminded me again of why I run. I think I was experiencing, like, a mini- runner's high.

For long runs, I like to run on this long, straight path across the street from the main part of the park. It goes all the way out to Germantown Parkway and when you cross the street you can get to the Germantown Greenway, which is another park. Anyway, I like running out there because of the flatness and because I can run out for half the distance and then back in for a cheat-free workout...with no temptation of getting in my car and driving home!

The path goes right through farmland, which I guess is owned by the county cause its on a public park. Now I'm no farmer, but its nice to get to see all of it flourishing at different times of the year. There's corn, cotton, sunflowers, bamboo for the pandas at the zoo and probably a lot more stuff that I just can't identify. Right now the cotton is in full bloom. Does cotton bloom? I don't know, but you know what I mean. Ok, I'll quit taking about crops and such because I'm not the Pioneer Woman.
I'm also loving the soreness of the "day after the long run." That soreness just feels like success to me. I love it.

And lastly, I got to run in my new neighborhood so that was really cool!! Yes, we are proud new homeowners as of Friday!! Yay!! Now let the work begin!

Ok now for the Cons:
Now I'm not an especially fast runner, but through the years, I have been able to improve and get faster. But something is up...my times this week have been really, really slow. Like even slower than I even was in the beginning. And I don't feel like I'm moving that slowly, that's the thing. I just recalibrated my HRM so I'm hoping that maybe its just off. I'm just going to leave it as it is and wait for the race this weekend. Then I'll compare my time and distance to the official race stats. So anyway, what was supposed to be a 5 mile pace run on Saturday didn't really go as planned. It was just a regular run. Also my heart rate was way up so I'm not sure what was going on with that either.

I finished up with 30 miles and am all ready to go for week 2. I've got a 3 mile recovery run this evening and then I'm out to the new house to start painting! That will be like an arm workout, right?

Oh-and the title of the blog is my favorite running song of the moment. It's got a great beat and will make you feel like a bad-ass while you run:)