Wahooooo!!

Super excited to start this training program – especially since week 1 is so, well, easy. It’s more or less what we’ve been running all along, plus a mile or two on the long run.

I can do this.

And what’s even better is that our runs this week were in the lovely, scorching heat of Wisconsin – so more exciting than our stupid old neighborhood loops.

We are using Hal Higdon’s Novice 2 training program at the suggestion of, well, everyone ever.

Our schedule for week 1:

• Monday: Rest day
• Tuesday: 3 miles
• Wednesday: 5 miles
• Thursday: 3 miles
• Friday: Rest day
• Saturday: 8 miles
• Sunday: 1 hour cross train

We got all of these workouts in, albeit not in the above order. We are on vacation and since we’re just starting to build, we took the liberty to work around the scorching heat and our other plans.

The first three was an easy out and back from my parents’ house, along the streets that skirt the banks of the Mississippi River. Nothing notable or even exciting, except that well, we ran it on Tuesday (as planned) after about 4 hours of sleep. We were both groggy and feeling lucky that the miles were so short and quick.

On Wednesday, we did our scheduled 5 on a route that afforded us a little bit of a view. We ran through some of my old high school friend’s neighborhoods, then down a paved path along a creek. Adam got to see the 2-3 foot piles of May flies from the recent hatch, which was thoroughly disgusting. The heat was predicted to hit 104, so we got out at 6 am but still dealt with 82 degrees and ridiculous humidity.

Thursday, we did our “cross training” with an hour-long hike, mostly uphill. I estimate we hiked roughly 4 miles, up a beautiful trail off Easter Road in La Crosse. We were both breathing hard for most of it, and sweating, so I’ll count that as cross training.

Friday, we used our rest day.

Saturday, we hit the rabbit trails for a quick 3 – and I mean quick. My pace is dropping again to the low 9′s on these shorter runs. The weather was much cooler (thankfully), and we enjoyed this run.

Sunday was predicted to be the coolest day of the week at 82, so we planned our 8 miler for early that morning before we headed to Jellystone campgrounds for a few nights. This is the run that we plan for; that we eat and drink and rest well for. That we want to enjoy the view for.

And that we did. We ran a really beautiful 8 miles on the rabbit trails of LaCrosse. Yellow finches flitted above the waist-high marsh grasses, birds chirped and the occasional fellow runner passed with a smile. The weather was absolutely perfect – cool, breezy and dry. We tried to run slowly but ended up with a 9:45 pace anyway – great weather does that.

The trail is a mixture of paved, gravel and dirt – which made for a really fun, relaxing run. Varying terrain is always more exciting than city roads, and we don’t have the opportunity to do much trail running where we live in Florida.

This was an easy week, especially with babysitters and vacation schedules. We were able (and encouraged) to sleep in, enjoy our runs and take our time.

So now that we’re back in Florida, and the runs are getting longer. . . we’ll get back to the early mornings, humidity and the alternating run schedules to accommodate childcare requirements.

Week 2 is already half over, and I’m going to miss one of my short runs this week due to two days in a car (and 1 at a campground).  Expecting a 3, a 5 and a 9er this week – and I’m ready for it.

Let’s do this.