Graduation Day!

Almost 4 years ago Angie and I were blessed with the first of our two daughters L.  Although it's hard to believe that 4 years have gone by, I see how grown up she is and think it must have been more like 10 years.  We get to celebrate her birthday this weekend with a party at Little Monkey Bizness.  This place is basically like an indoor playground with a couple bouncy castles/slides mixed in.  It's madness.  There are kids screaming, kids running back and forth with smiles on their faces, kids riding tricycles around, big kids, little kids.  It's so funny to see the different reactions at this place.  On one hand there is L who wants to hold hands with either Angie or me and wants us to watch her the entire time.  Then there are the kids whose heads explode as soon as they step foot inside.  The parents open the door and that is literally the last time they see their kid for 60 minutes.  Then you have the parents.  Half of them go straight to the coffee bar and order the largest caffeine filled drink they can hold.  I'm sure they would add something a little stronger if they were allowed.  Then you have the parents that are sitting on the benches with their noses buried in their smartphones thankful for a few minutes to themselves.  Finally there is the group of parents standing next to  each other watching their kids who are screaming "WATCH ME!! WATCH ME!!"  I already know where Angie and I will be..."WATCH ME DADDY, WATCH ME MOMMY!"

Well, today I officially completed the couch to 5k program!  I actually followed the entire program to the letter with the exception of this Monday.  I was supposed to do a 5 minute warm up walk followed by a 30 minute run/jog, and then a 5 minute cool down walk.  Unfortunately I wasn't paying close attention to the weather and went out when it was 80+ degrees out.  I finally wore out after jogging 27.5 minutes and had to walk the last 2.5 minutes.  Doing most of my runs in the 50 and 60 degree weather I wasn't prepared for the heat.  I know I know, it's going to get hotter but I was hoping to ramp up to running in the heat, not a 20 degree change.  The rest of the week I went earlier in the day (while the temps were in the high 60s) and I did much better.

During the 9 week program I ended up walking/jogging just under 78 miles in just under 15 hours for an average pace of 11 minutes and 49 seconds.  That's not too bad considering every workout had a 5 minute warm up and cool down and the first 6 weeks of the program were interval training.  I actually had my best pace and distance today going 3.92 miles in 40 minutes.  Take out the warm up and cool down and I ran 3.29 miles at a 9 minute 7 second pace.  I'm not exactly sure what I'll do next week but I'll probably stick with the week 9 program for the first 2 workouts and then do some interval training aiming for a longer distance on the 3rd workout.

Projected 1/2 marathon time (repeating day 3 of week 9 workout): 136 minutes = 2 hours 16 minutes

1/2 marathon time goal: 2 hours 30 minutes