My First Four-Miler

Yesterday, Aaron and I ran my first and his second four-mile run. There is this awesome paved trail at the Missouri River front in Wash MO. It's 2.5 miles one way, so we turned around before the last half mile. Our goal is to get to 5 miles. According to The Complete Book of Running & Fitness by Fred Lebow, runners shouldn't up their weekly mileage by more than 10%. So, I will need to wait another week before going for the 5 miles. Actually, I think I'm going to do another 4-mile week first. We were definately not going for speed (41 minutes total/10:15 miles).

I don't think I have actually mentioned this, but we are doing a 5K race (3.1 miles) October 8th. I am totally stoked about this. My goal is to finish in the top third (okay, at the bottom of the top third). To train I'm upping my mileage to about 10 miles a week, shooting for 12-15 per week by race day. So far my best mile has been 7:50. Not stellar, but the progress is amazing considering 5 months ago I thought I was going to keel over after slowly jogging for about a minute and a half.

My workout plan for next few weeks looks like this:

Monday-30 minute upper body circuits weight training in fitness center during lunch (I love working at a college). After work, easy 4/5 miles at the River Front Trail.
Tuesday-2 miles incorperating 4-6 Fartleks (I run fast until my body says slow down and recover a while; repeat)
Wednesday-30 minute weight training
Thursday-easy 3 miles at home or bike/rollerblade.
Friday-Upper body training in the fitness center. After work, speed work. I'm thinking about doing intervals. Run easy 10 minutes, then 1 minute hard/1 easy for ten minutes, then 10 minutes easy.
This is the generally plan I have for the next 7 weeks. I'll adjust with what is working for my body.
I would love to run the 5K in the 24 minute range. I guess we'll see what happens.