Help for Hope House 5k

This week, amidst some on-again, off-again knee aches, I decided to just by golly make myself a training plan for proposed marathon #6. As I mentioned in my last post, I'm just going to take it day by day and run by run. No pressure! After being intrigued by the Hanson Brothers training method, plus a bit of googling, I came up with a plan. The reason I was intrigued is because I heard that they don't go past 16 miles (the theory being to run that 16 on 'tired legs' to similate the last half of the marathon, more or less). With our packed spring schedule, shorter longruns would be much appreciated. Another issue is very busy weekends, one of which will be sans-Chasen who will soon be in China. So Chasen suggested that I do longruns on Fridays while Isaac is at Mother's Day Out (for five hours, anyway). That was a GREAT idea! Another thing is that a 20-miler, for example, requires some "course support," both moral and physical. Sixteen, on the other hand, well... I think I can get by.

I modified the Hanson "Beginner" marathon plan (because, let's face it... I just can't do 50+ mile weeks, which the "Advanced" schedule mandates) to fit my life a bit. First, I reduced it from six days per week to five. Second, as I mentioned, I moved the longruns to Fridays. As time goes on I may interject a rest day mid-week instead of two days in a row. We shall see. I am calling it my "Hanson Inspired Plan For A Busy Mom."

So Friday I dropped Isaac off and headed out for a 12 mile run. It ended up being 11 due to my chosen course, but oh well. It went OK - much, much better than the 10 I did five days prior. An ice bath was necessary, both because I want to be as safe as possible (musn't wear doen this old body!) AND because that night I was slated to help a friend run her first 5k. Yep! As I was finishing up my longrun I kept thinking "Oh, tonight is going to be UGLY." But thanks to the magic of the ice bath, I was bright eyed and bushy tailed. Tracie is a friend from church. She works out quite a bit and runs a bit as well. I kind of thought she had a love/hate relationship with running, but SHE initiated the 5k talk. So we planned it and did it!

Here we are before the race. Isaac was also there, as you can see. He stayed with Chasen.

We ran the Help for Hope House 5k in Memphis. Specifically, we ran in Harbor Town, a very nice area of downtown near Mud Island. Tracie's husband, Jerry, navigated the course with Chasen and Isaac to take lots of photos of us.

Here, Jerry leans down as Tracie and I (red, yellow and maroon) run towards the famous "Pyramid."

Tracie did sooooo well! She had me moving! We never walked except at a water stop.

Of course, she said that I kept her moving. What a team we were!

Here we come! I asked Jerry why he wasn't ringing his cowbell right then.

We ran the first mile sub-12 and the next two miles sub-11. Whoa baby! According to my Garmin, we finished in 35:29. I think that is pretty incredible for me considering my legs already had 11 miles on them.

Here are the happy finishers. All smiles and ready for some grub!

The absolute best part of the 5k was what Tracie said about it when we finished. Given that she had a love/hate relationship with running, I figured that her opinion would be "OK, I've done it. That's it." But nooooo. She said "That was fun. Let's do another one." Wowee! Music to my ears! And now we have a connection, other than just being friends from church. Cool beans!

Happy training, everyone.