Lee's Myth

Friday, August 26, 2011

First Races!

To the victor belongs the honey!

Lee's first race took place in a small town with some enthusiastic runners. She trained carefully for it - making sure to go to bed on time every night the week before, and wheedling her grandfather to go on extra training runs with her. (After the first one, he decided to accompany her by bicycle!)

She has apparently picked up good instincts and habits from her dad, with a steady pace and excellent focus.

She was the youngest participant in the race, but finished ahead of many other kids. No slouch, this one!

Clara participated in a fun run afterward - gotta love the big smile as she goes by her adoring fans!

I'm so proud of both of them!

There was also a little craft fair nearby, with some cool stuff. I thought the turtle bag (above) was cute. But I really don't need any more bags.

It was a great long weekend with family. Other highlights included watching The Wizard of Oz and playing Upwords, and just generally catching up and enjoying delicious home-cooked meals (thank yous to Mom and Ruth!)

A Test

The treadmills were not available this morning, so I went forward with my test on the "Hills" setting of the elliptical machine. I entered my age and weight so I could let the machine translate my heart rate into categories (warm up / fat burn / cardio / high peak), I set the monitors to show time elapsed, and I kept my eye on the mileage.

So, the results? I did 3.1 miles in 29:10 - staying in "cardio" heart range the entire time, except where I pushed myself to "high peak" (heavy breathing ensued, ugh - but at least now I know that's the tell-tale symptom of "high peak"). So in theory I could do a 5 k race now. Although the uncontrolled conditions of an actual race make me shudder. And how would I push myself without all the numbers? I averaged a little under a 10-minute mile over the entire 40 minutes, but was actually fastest in the second mile.

I did participate in a 5k race once, when we were in NJ. As I recall, the result was not good - I either felt really sick at the end of it, or got cramped, or something like that. I don't recall if I finished the race or not, but I'm pretty sure I got a t-shirt. I assume this was during my final year of high school, when I was in fact running fairly regularly outdoors (but never racing).