As you know, I've decided to use Hal Higdon's novice 10K Training Program as my next running program. This evening, I finished up Week 1, Day 3, so I've got a little catching up to do.
Day 1 calls for stretching and strengthening, so I went to the gym. I warmed up for 10 minutes on the elliptical cross-trainer, and then proceed to do a lower body strength workout--the first since before starting the Couch-to-5K Running Program. Needless to say, I am sore now.
Day 2 calls for a 2.5 mile run. According to Hal, this run should be done at a fairly easy pace. Julie decided to run this with me, at least as much as she could, with the dog. We just did a half mile loop around the block 5 times, with an additional half mile warm-up and a half mile cool-down. Here are my running splits:
As you can see, I stayed fairly steady for the first two miles (I did feel like I went out a little fast in lap 1, and probably overcompensated in lap 2). In lap 5, I was determined to pick up the pace, and went around in a faster, but still comfortable pace, for the first 4/5 of the lap. However, in the final turn and straightaway, I went about as fast as my legs and lungs would take me. All in all, considering the soreness that I felt in my legs from Day 1's strength workout, I felt good about this run.
Tonight was Day 3, which meant 30 minutes of cross-training. Hal allows just about anything for cross-training, as long as it isn't too intense. I chose to hop on the elliptical cross-trainer for 30 minutes. Got a nice sweat and burned about 440 calories. Not too bad.