MY SUMMER Challenges

THE FOURTH OF JULY HOLIDAY IS A MILESTONE MARKER OF SUMMER IN THE USA. Although it's not the exact halfway point between Memorial Day and Labor Day, which would be July 18, this date lands sufficiently close but prior to midsummer that it's arrival can be an alert to take action sooner rather than later in the season, if you're still intending to take up a running challenge. It's also time to assess progress and make a course correction if you're not on a trajectory to meet your goal(s).

I am attempting all three of the challenges promoted by the EarnedRuns blog (see May 21 blog):
1) Streak Running 2) EarnedRuns Run-Walk Across America, and 3) 5K RACE or Race series (and get faster). Mostly my efforts are to test whether or not each can be accomplished by an everyday, non-elite level runner. Also this is a way to determine if any or all are fun enough to be worthy of repeating next year. The mid-course assessments are below.

- Streak running: although running a single mile is not a difficult task in and of itself, doing so everyday is truly challenging! Now that I've started the streak I realize that when I MUST RUN, I complete that obligation before beginning any other activity, which may get pushed to the side. Most often the neglected activity is strength training. I stretch, perform MYRTL's, and foam roll because these sessions are important to my running injury-free, each time BEFORE setting out on a run. After a run of merely one mile, with all the preparation that's required, the likelihood of my getting in a strength workout greatly decreases. Most days I run more than one mile because the training plan to meet challenge #3, Run more 5ks (and get faster), see below, calls for a longer distance or combination of interval distances with warm-up and cool-down miles.

July 4 assessment: 58 consecutive running days; a walking streak would be smarter for healthy training

- Earned Runs Run-Walk Across America: for reasons of pride I am trying to cover the miles at a 10:1 ratio. It's tough to do them all as running miles AND follow the advanced 5K training plan. Rather than performing this activity only Mondays-Fridays, the miles of weekend runs must be counted to rack up the number  determined by this ratio. Walking fills in some gaps. The best part of this challenge is learning more about the history and geography of the territory through which the route segments pass.

July 4 assessment: weeks 1-5 completed successfully at the 10:1 ratio; higher ratio would be smarter

- 5K RACE or race series (and get faster): I am starting week 4 of 8 week Hal Higdon's Advanced 5K Training Plan. This challenge is THE MOST IMPORTANT to me; training by the schedule to run my fastest in a goal 5K August 8 trumps successfully completing all other challenges.  It's going well, except that I have skipped three strength workouts (see the streak report above). I ran a "test 5k" with an EarnedRuns bib today, 5 days earlier than scheduled, in order to celebrate this holiday with a race.

July 4 assessment:  "test 5K" time was 37 seconds faster than a Memorial Day 5K run with an EarnedRuns bib, and 28 seconds faster than my previous best at an organized 5k race. YAY! No changes to this challenge.

How are you doing with your summer challenge(s)?

RUN HAPPY!

http://www.earned-runs.com/resources.html

http://www.halhigdon.com/training/50935/5K-Advanced-Training-Program (added later 7/5)