C25K – Week 2, Day 1

Did my second trail run yesterday at the Cooper Mountain Nature Park. I’m still trying to find the routes that have more gravel than rocks.

The Run

I ended up doing almost the reverse of my week 1 day 2 run. It was a lot harder because I kept hitting the run interval on uphills.

Learned

I was able to get a good stride on the downhills runs. Moving with a faster cadence helped me feel more stable.

Next Run

Weather permitting, I’m hoping to do another trail run on Wednesday.

Run stats

  • Distance: 2.02 miles
  • Duration: 28:27 min
  • Pace: 14:06 min/mi (5 min warm-up/cool-down)
  • Elevation change: 354

Activity details

C25K – Week 1, Day 3

This weekend I was finally able to get my 1.5 mile test run in at a local track. I needed to do it to measure my progress in UBC. It wasn’t as long as my normal C25K runs but it was a lot more intense since I was trying to push myself to run 50-75% of the time.

The Run

The track I used was a fairly standard 1/4 mile loop made of asphalt. Pretty boring stuff…

Learned

Since the track was such a hard surface I use a pair of old running shoes instead of my Vibram five fingers. I didn’t have as much pain but it was really hard to keep a good form, I kept on stretching my legs out in front too much.

Next Run

Weather permitting, I’m hoping to do another trail run on Monday.

Run stats

  • Distance: 1.5 miles
  • Duration: 15:37 min
    • Lap 1: 2:15.6
    • Lap 2: 2:22.0
    • Lap 3: 2:34.5
    • Lap 4: 2:50.8 (10:02.9 mile)
    • Lap 5: 2:49.2
    • Lap 6: 2:44.6
  • Pace: 10:24 min/mi (no warm-up/cool-down timed)
  • Elevation change: 0

C25K – Week 1, Day 2

Had to take some time off due to my injury. I think the split is helping now and I’ve figured out how to run without too much shock getting to my hand. So tonight I was finally able to do a trail run.

The Run

Did a run through the Cooper Mountain Nature Park. It has mostly gravel trails (with some large gravel in spots) but it was so nice to get off the hard streets.

Learned

Starting to get better and landing on my ball and toes now. It also felt easier to take shorter strides.

Protip: running uphill early on is an easy way to tie out. I’ll need to play with my routes a bit.

Next Run

Since UBC has cardio days on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday I think I might try to get a run in afterwards (early evening).

Run stats

  • Distance: 2.04 miles
  • Duration: 31:53 mi
  • Pace: 15:38 min/mi (5 minute warm-up/cool-down walks)
  • Elevation change: 336 feet (felt uphill both ways)

Activity details

C25K – Week 1, Day 1

Barely got out the door today, technology sucks:

  • iPhone Alarm only vibrated, no audio. Woke up 10 minutes late
  • My C25K timing playlist was out of order so it started on Week 9 so I…
  • Had to edit my playlist on the Mac and re-sync but my iTunes library wasn’t mounted (sshfs) so I had to wait for Finder to timeout and then remount
  • Of course right at that time iTunes wanted to sync my podcasts also

But I finally got out the door. 15 minutes late but at least I didn’t give up.

The Run

Did a run through a housing development near us. Was pretty flat but also got in a bit of trail running through a hidden park off of 209th. I wore my five fingers so my heels were (still are) killing me.

Learned

The five fingers aren’t that good on hard surfaces, especially since I my skin isn’t built up on my soles yet. They did help me feel my form more though, I could tell I need to shorten my stride a bit still.

The audio timing helped out a lot. This time I stopped and turned around right at the 50% mark so I didn’t get too far off course. If I keep turning around I should be able to see how far I go each day and try to increase it.

Checking the run in Runkeeper makes it really easy to see the intervals from C25K. I can see 9 perfect peaks where my pace increased (best peaked at 7:49 min/mile).

Next Run

My next run is on Saturday and it’s part of a evaluation test for UBC so I’m not going to follow C25K completely. It’s a 1.5 mile track run so I might try to use the timing but push myself harder.

After that I’m hoping to do my Saturday runs on a local trail. Should help my balance, save my heels, and be more interesting (Snakes on the trail!).

Run stats

  • Distance: 2.15 miles
  • Duration: 28:41 min
  • Pace: 13:20 min/mi (5 minute warm-up/cool-down walks)
  • Elevation change: 72 feet

Activity details

Starting C25K Tomorrow

I’m going to start training for my first 5K over the next several weeks and I’ll be starting the Couch to 5K program again. Last time I got to week 2 before stopping. Hopefully this time I’m starting early enough that the weather won’t be a factor.