Fast Grandma!
After experiencing a little burn out in April, I’m back and feeling great! I hit the trail with a new playlist called “Speed” tonight, and it lived up to the name. I set a new PR for the half mile, 3:47. I slowed down in the second half to finish the mile in 8:08, which is pretty close to my PR. I could have gone a little faster, but was trying to save something to extend the run. After 2.3 miles, I was feeling pretty spent, so I called it a night. On the drive home my head and legs were ready to go again, but my lungs were still burning. I think I can get under 8:00 for the mile this month. This may not seem very fast to most of you serious runners, but for a “fat grandma” who started running at age 43, it is a huge accomplishment!
The running is paying off in more ways than improved speed and endurance. I had a physical last month and my doctor was very impressed with my cholesterol score (136), and my blood pressure (90/70). Not bad for a “fat grandma”!
May 4th, 2007 at 6:52 pm
Hi Diva,
congrats on pushing the speed higher. What really helped me in preparation for the 10k and later for half marathon was speed work twice a week. One day was focused on tempo run and second day on hard intervals. Oh and the two days were separated by easy 4 miler or free day.
I could not believe how quickly time passed during intervals even when I ran 9 miles (including warm-up 2 mi and cool-down 2 miles).
Before the speed training I ran mile in 9:00 at a comfortable pace (not pushing it), now after few months I shaved off 1 minute from my comfortable run and I was able to run 5k on the treadmill at 7:20 the whole distance (again after 2 miles warm-up).
What I’m trying to say is that your speed will improve. Just keep focusing on it. I had a chat with few master runners 65+ after a 10 miler run and they encouraged me to keep doing the speed work. They told me that when they started running in their late 40s they had about 7 years of getting to top shape before the age took over and they started to lose speed. That was pretty encouraging.
Jan