Week Two of Interval Training...

So this was session number four. I was somewhat disorganized this morning. I actually put on the wrong shoes. I left my Asics at home & had the old New Balance pair on. Not good. I didn't even realize it until I got to the trailhead. I could tell the difference. The pair of New Balance are worn down from continuous, daily wear. Not so cushy! I went for it anyhow. The weather was significantly cooler today.

Not too bad overall. The running increments have increased to around 90 seconds. So you're doing the same time, a similar distance but running more than the previous week. This would have been more comfortable wearing the Asics. The old shoes don't have adequate cushion... so my feet were landing harder than normal. Still, my cadence & cardio function are improving. I'm dropping weight fairly quickly as well.

Yesterday, while out & about with the roommates, we drove through Celebration Park in Federal Way because they have a trail there that I wanted to check out. It's much closer to home that the McMillen trailhead. I didn't use it this morning because I want to reconnoiter it first. At first clance it looks to have a significant amount of hilly terrain & I'm not up to hill running yet. Great training mind you... but I'm barely started on this thing & need to work up to it.

So this afternoon I'll take a drive over there and check out the trail as well as the parking stuation. It looks like the nearest parking lots are several hundred feet from the actual trail. I may take along a camera & snap a few photos as well.



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This set of trails follows the powerline grid & apparently stretches all the way to Tacoma. This will be good once I get into longer distances. There should be fewer streets & intersections to deal with. I'm just not sure how level it is & at least for now... I don't want to be doing the return leg (1.6 miles) all uphill.








Yes. It is fairly hilly. I went about a mile down into the trail to take these. I saw virtually ZERO bicycle riders, which is a plus in my book. I'm getting a little tired of hordes of these baffoons blocking the entire trail when they stop to gab or ramming into me as they ride past... occasionally even when they're coming towards me. I did see several neighborhood walkers... & one or two homeless "camp sites". Also it's in Federal Way so no packing a firearm. (Yes, that ordinance IS illegal but I don't have the $50k that would be required to challenge it after my arrest.)

There is a small parking lot just across the street from the trailhead. It has about a dozen spaces including two handicapped one. It was virtually emptu today but I imagine that it's full in the afternoons. So parking next to the balls fields and hiking ot the trail may be my only option.

It's rather ironic that my Functional Handstrength e-mail today talked about including running in ones strength program. I'm not interested in doing marathons or any dedicated distance running. I'm not interested in that type of endurance running. I am interested in rebuilding my cardiovascular & aerobic conditioning as well as FUNCTIONAL STRENGTH. A more aggressive & challenging course won't be a bad thing. I've said that I'd like to include hill running & adding some miles ot this particular trail will mean a variety of terrain as opposed to the valley floor that I've been walking and running on. Something like this will be eneficial to the more advanced Fartlek training. There are some soccer fields within the park coplex where I may be able to do sprinting.

Then there's the fact that I can be nearly done with my run on this trail where I would likely be just pulling in to the parking lot at McMillen. The conditioning here is going to be tougher. It will be especially gruelling if we have many more 90-degree days. It looks like I'll be investing in that CamelBak solution sooner than I'd planned. I will probably be buying more running gear as well.

Once again I'm looking at how I can manipulate my schedule to fit all of this in. I know that I'm going to need at least one full day of rest per week. I should also start goping to bed an hour earlier. I'm not sure if I can get to sleep that early, but I suppose that once I begin adding exercise nearly every day, exhaustion is going to catch up with me.

The Spring Krav Maga session ends this coming Thursday. They have yet to update the calendar, but I'm hoping that they will begin a fresh cycle within the next two to three weeks. I'd like to begin that training as well. I'll have to change my running schedule around a bit. I may end up running Friday, Sunday & Tuesday for a while. I want to keep the three-times-per-week at least through teh 9 to 10 week cycle of this program. Once I am up to runnin a full 5k thrice-per-week I may adjust things a bit. As I said before, I may drop to two days per week & then begin to lengthen the runs. A 10k run should take me about an hour in the afternoon or evening.