I Apologize

First, let me congratulate Tia, Jasper, and Lisa, our Raptor Teammates, on the successful completion of the Shiprock Marathon. I am both proud of there accomplishment and honored that they are a part of Raptor Racing.

Next, I must apologize for my lack of activity in regards to blogging. I believe that blogging provides a very necessary outlet for the training process in that it allows you to share your experiences and keep track of your personal progress throughout training.

Up until a couple of weeks ago I was going through the motions of training and I owe Raptor Racing a debt of gratitude, because had it not been for my responsibility to the team I probably would not even have done that.

However, a couple of weeks ago I had a motivational epiphany. About 5 minutes before the start of the Saturday morning run, no one was there. I wasn't that disconcerted since the team is comprised of mostly women :) But by the time we started there were at 10 team members running. And coming from last year were we would regularly have only 3 people running I was really excited to see the level of participation. It really served as a catalyst to get the motivational engine running so to speak. As a result, my weekly training activity has been greatly improved if not in quantity, definitely in quality of effort. As a matter of fact on Tues I ran the fastest 3 miles I have ever run (34:30 total -11:30 per mile BLAZING!!). Unfortunately, it is a bit of a fish tale since the battery on my Garmin ran down and didn't record the training. But nonetheless I am excited and rededicated to the training and subsequently the blogging.

Status (3.75 out of 5):
My week starts on Sunday and I was able to workout Sun, Mon, Tues, Wed. I was sick and recovering from Thurs. through Sat. which was a bummer since I was anxious to build on my new record. I've been getting a lot of weight lifting in and (don't tell my wife) I think I'm at the point where people are starting to notice. I mean I still have this spare tire, but it's off a honda civic and not a Hummer like it use to be.

This Week in Training:

I'm going to take it slow coming off sickness, but I'm feeling good. What I have been doing is speed work. Speed being relative. I have been running an average of 4 miles per workout, but on the last mile I've been doing intervals where I would run a hard .1 or .2 miles then walk .1 miles. I have also been running "hard" miles. Dropping the total mileage down to about 2.5 miles but run one of those miles at sub 11 minute pace. I think this has helped my endurance tremendously. I will continue to incorporate weight training and bicycling and I am going to try and make a more concerted effort to introduce swimming(again) into my cross training schedule.

Weekly Power Song: This Is Why I'm Hot by MIMS
Weekly Motto: I Can and I Will!