5 by the 5th - April

The good news is, I'm getting faster and the 5k's are getting easier.  The bad news is, I'm still doing them on the treadmill because it's still snowing at inconvenient times (like this morning and all of last week).

I keep my sanity in this by reminding myself that in 4 more wake-ups I'll be on vacation and en route to places south where snow and gloom are not on the menu.

Anyway, I submitted a time of 33:59 for my 5k this month.  Broke the 35 minute mark, yay!  It really is getting easier to run longer and faster, and I'm liking the intervals too.

Hopefully next month will be outside in the nice spring weather - I'm not holding my breath - and I'll be able to find an actual organized race to run it it.

5 by the 5th Challenge - March

After last weeks outdoor long run I was totally set to do my 5k for March outside and see how I do without that silly treadmill holding me back :)  It was dry and sunny on Saturday and supposed to be more of the same for Sunday.

And then this happened Saturday night:

So back to the treadmill I go for another week - next weekend is supposed to be sunny and nice again, I hope it is so I can do a trial run for my 5 miler on the 23rd.

Anyhoo...

On my treadmill, again.  5k - 36:45  then, because I was supposed to do 4.5 miles,  I cut the pace back and finished off the last 2.2 k for a total time of 55:00.  Felt good, no pain or aches but I really wanted to be outside.

Oh well, there's always next month :)

5 by the 5th Challenge - February

5 by the 5th is a virtual race series put on by Laura at Mommy Run Fast.  Basically what it says on the tin; run 5k (or 5 miles) by the fifth of each month - January to June, record your time and share it with everyone!  (And possibly win prizes :) )

I'm still hoping to find some actual races around Calgary that fits the dates, because it would be cool but also because all of my training so far has been on the treadmill and while I don't mind it - as it's flippin' COLD here - I think that getting some actual race-type experience would be beneficial.  And I'm not convinced that either of my treadmill or my Nike+ footpod are telling the truth when it comes to speed.

January's results were less than spectacular, still getting into the swing of things. 

February was much much better; 35:38 for 5km, or around 11:30 per mile (my math skills are fuzzy this morning), and I did it running 10 minutes (~5.5 mph) walking 1 minute which I'm super pleased with.  I've been doing the Galloway run:walk:run method and haven't pushed myself at all with pace or duration of the running segments so it's nice to see that I can run continuously for longer than 2 minutes.

Looking forward to what results next month brings!