I finally got the shoes that I designed at the Adidas store in Tokyo and have been running solely in them and have put my Asics aside for a while. It was fun sitting with Andrew at the MiAdidas section of the store and picking out colors and materials on the computer to come up with a pretty fun shoe. I was even able to put my own slogan on the side of each shoe--rockin it! I didn't really think that a lighter shoe would really make that much of a difference but they have made all the difference to me. Not only are they lighter but my feet feel better after I run in these shoes compared to my Asics shoes. I tested them out on my first 5K in a long time. There always seems to be 5K and 10K races on the base here in Yokosuka so I decided (with Mike's insistance) to run the 5K to see where I was at in terms of speed and what I needed to work on. It turns out this 5K course was not a 5K at all and to make it even more fun they added a huge hill at the end of mile 2. So this was not an ideal race to try and break 20 minutes but I ended up averaging a 6:30 pace (hill and all) for the 2.7 mile race. I came in 8th place overall and first female finisher. Abby and Mike were cheering me on (it was in the middle of the school day on a Friday) and it was cute to see Abby jump up and down cheering for me as I finished. Apparently she said as I was finishing, "You won mommy, you won!" What a sweet little girl she is. This race taught me that I needed to add more speed into my weekly routine so that running 6:26 splits feels more doable. In fact, if I want to break 40 minutes in the 10K I need to run 6:26 splits. I have a ways to go before I achieve that goal but atleast I know some of the things I need to do in order to reach that goal. With goals in mind I have made 4 goals to achieve in the next couple of years or however long it takes:
2 mile - break my 11:54 time (got Junior year in HS)
10K - break 40 minutes
5K - break 20 minutes
These are pretty lofty goals but I think I can do it with a lot more focus on speed and shedding some unnecessary fat. This will require me to eat better than I have in my whole life. To start out my weekly speed training this last Wednesday I ran:
1 mile warmup
400 speed (1:29) 5:58 min/mile pace
400 recovery
400 speed (1:32) 6:04 min/mile pace
400 recovery
800 speed (3:03) 6:06 min/mile pace
400 recovery
800 speed (3:10) 6:20 min/mile pace (wind and lights were not in my favor on the return)
400 recovery
1200 speed (4:48) 6:22 min/mile pace (wind and lights were not in my favor on the return)
1 mile cool down
It was a great workout except for the headwind on the return trip back to base and the darn lights I got stuck at. Still, I was pretty happy with my first attempt at shorter speed pick ups for this year. Not to mention that I do these alone with no one to pace me. It takes a lot of motivation and mental preparation to keep up the pace and run in the middle of Japan with lots of people, cars, and lights. I have been mainly doing longer tempo runs which is great but not good enough to bring my times down. With all the weight training I have been adding into my routine I am finding myself exhausted between my runs and it has been hard to get up at 5 am to run on my off days. Hopefully this next week I be able to be a little more disciplined to run 4-5 days a week instead of just the 3 days a week I have been doing for the last couple of weeks. I think my body has finally adjusted and the weather is a little warmer so the 5am runs should be a little easier.
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