Wednesday, July 28, 2010

Another great mini

I'm back from another great mini-vacation.  4 days in the Okanagan.  Weather was absolutely wonderful - hot with a little breeze.

Managed 3 out of 4 days running.  Saturday we drove up there but before we left I lazed in bed in the morning instead of running.  By the time we got there it was much too hot and I went to bed fairly early after a long day.

Sunday morning I went out and did 5 miles.  Had planned to do 7, but arranged to meet my sister at a time I figured I would be finished my run, as is typical of me, I didn't get out early enough and ran late.  It was SUPER hot by the time I met up with her.  I had water, but really needed a refill.  My sister is just beginning running so we did run/walk intervals.  I was very impressed with her pace. 

Monday morning I chose a different location to run, one that had ALOT more shade, and was also close to a bathroom and my car (which had more water in it).  I also FINALLY discovered the power of my Garmin.  So far I only have used my Garmin to tell me distance, time & pace.  But after playing around, I learned how to set it for intervals.  YAY!  I wouldn't have to glance at my watch constantly.

I had set it for 1 min fast pace, 2 min slow pace x 15 intervals.  I also indicated I wanted to do a warm-up & cool down.  Not knowing how the warm-up worked, I ran ... and ran ... and ran, waiting for it to beep and let me know the warm-up was done.  Figured it would beep at maybe 5 minutes, or 1/2 a mile .... or 10 minutes ... maybe 1 mile?????  Then I questioned if I even set it up properly so ignored it for a while and just ran.  Then a little light went off in my head and I thought ... hmmmm, may I have to press the LAP button when I was done my warm-up and ready to move on.  I had run 1.7 miles before that lightbulb went off.

Having done a much longer warm-up than planned, I figured I wouldn't bother doing all 15 laps of the intervals.  But ... I ended up scooting around town, checking out new things, and before I knew it I had completed 9 of the 15 laps.  I didn't know how to reset the # of laps mid-run, and really wanted to know what happens when you're done.  So, I stopped and refilled my water, then really pushed it through those last 6 laps.  It was hot and I was tired, so some of my slow paced intervals were very slow, even a walk - but I was OK with that.  At the end I did a nice, slow cool down.  What a COOL feature!  If you have a Garmin and haven't yet played around with the workouts you can create, I highly recommend it!

Afterwards I found a nice shady spot on the grass, over-looking Okanagan Lake.  There was a wonderful breeze coming across and it just felt like this was my reward for completing a tough training session.  Pure bliss!

Running schedule this week:

Mon - Rest (did 6.68miles incl. 15 x 1:00 fartlek w/2:00 recovery)
Tues - 3 mile tempo run @ 8:20/mi  (done)
Wed - 4 mile moderate run (2 miles at 8:40 / 2 miles at 7:40)
Thur - 3 mile easy run @ 9:40/mi
Fri  - rest
Sat - 3 mile easy fartleks
Sun - 8 mile @ 9:10-9:20/mi

It sure is nice to incorporate exercise on vacation.  Somehow it just makes you a little more focused on eating healthier ... or at the very least it balances the indulgences a bit.

Keep Active!

Heidi
♥♥♥♥♥

8 comments:

ajh said...

Your shady spot sounds so nice!

kimert said...

Great job running!! It is so hard to run in the heat/humidity (at least for me) so I admire you for doing it!!

Lucy K said...

That is awesome that you incorporated running while on vacation. Those cinnamon rolls look amazing.
:)

Anonymous said...

That is awesome about your garmin. I can sadly say I do not know the power of my own garmin. I am tempted to mess aroud with it now! Thanx for sharing that little tip. And way to run on vacation. THat is SUPER DUPER hard and especially with the hotness. Way to go!

Fran said...

Wow Heidi, that have been some great runs you did while being away.

I've tried to set up intervals on the Garmin with the Garmin training centre because my interval training is f.e. 100-100-200-200-300-500-600, different distances. When I used it it counted down from 100 but I didn't see my pace and I needed that because I intend to run to slow at an interval. That was so annoying I turned around and went home.

I'm going to check it out again but then try to set it up directly on my Garmin.

Marlene said...

Great job on the runs while on vacation! Love that interval/lap functions on the Garmin.

Missy said...

Great job moving it on vacation. That takes dedication!! Hope you have a great weekend!

Marcelle said...

Wow inspiration hearing you running while away on holiday..thats the girl...the running girl I * fell in love with *

Its raining and cold here at the moment well all of this week so no running for me, went to the gym once but besides that...nothing!!!
I cant run when it rains...am a South African girl who loves the sunshine....