What did I do on my first official day of summer break? I woke up at my usual workday time of 5am so that I could be at Deep Run Park by 7am to get my 3 mile run done before the high temps and humidity set in for the day. (I have always been a morning person; I enjoy the solitude of early morning as the world slowly wakes up for the day.)
Since MTT has started, I have had to miss one or two workouts during the week, due to extreme heat during the day or thunderstorms or time constraints. I am happy to say that this past week I was finally able to complete ALL the training runs that we needed to! Woohoo!!
The Bane of My Running
This past Thursday was the first hill workout of MTT. Because of my asthma, hills are the hardest part of running for me. Knowing that I would be out of town for the next 7 weeks and training on my own, I rearrange my schedule for Thursday so that I could make it to the first hill workout and learn what a hill workout entailed. Three of the MTT coaches led the hill workout at Deep Run Park, which is only about 5 minutes from where I live. We started with a slow warm up loop around the pond. I had thought that we would be running hills on one of the hills along the paved trail in the park, but once the coaches explained what the workout would be, I realized that we would not be staying in the park; instead we would be in a neighborhood nearby. Since I wasn't quite sure where the hill workout would take place, I ran the whole warm up loop in order to see where the group was going; mind you, I had been doing the Galloway method so far in MTT, so I was quite tired and out of breath once we reached the street where we would do the hill workout. This week's hill workout was going to be 4 loops of the hill, running up the hill at about 85% of your effort and coming back down the hill should take twice as long as going up. I made it to the top of the hill the first time in about a minute and a half, but was wheezing once I reached the top. As I turned around to head back down the hill, Donnie (one of the coaches) asked if I was OK; my gasping/wheezing reply was, "Asthma." The next two times I ran up the hill, I made it about 3/4 of the way up before I had to stop running and walk the rest of the way up because I was starting wheeze [I think the wheezing was partially due to me panicking as I had to exert more and more effort to get up the hill]. By the time I made my way back to the bottom of the hill after my third loop, only 3 of us were left (along with the coaches) because everyone else had finished their hills. [In my mind, I knew that I would be one of the last ones to finish, but it still hurt to see that I was right.] After finishing my 4 hill loops, we ran back to the park (which was just 2 streets away) and did a slow cool down loop around the pond. Donnie ran back to me as I was nearing the parking lot to check on me; I'm glad I was wearing sunglasses and a baseball cap so that he couldn't see my frustrated and upset expression. As we walked to our cars, we talked about the hill workouts. Donnie gave me some pointers on how to do them, and he ended with "Just run at your own pace." [I know that I'm not a fast runner, and may never become a fast runner, but it still frustrates and upsets me sometimes to see that I'm one of the last ones to finish a workout or race.]
7 Week MTT Hiatus
Yesterday was my last group training run with my MTT teammates because for the next 7 weeks I will be out of town. Here's what my next 7 weeks will look like:
- June 30th: drive up to Cleveland, OH to drop off 7 weeks worth of clothes and stuff at my parents' house
- July 1-3: finish any last-minute preparations/packing for Nyári Iskola Tábor and do my marathon training runs
- July 4: drive up to Sík Sándor Cserkészpark in Fillmore, NY to get ready for Nyári Iskola
- July 5-19: help out at Nyári Iskola Tábor (annual Hungarian summer school camp that I haven't been to since I was around 10 years old) with administrative work and try to stick to my marathon training schedule as much as possible
- July 20-August 5: back in Cleveland at my parents' house, working on stuff for KMCsSz (the Hungarian Scout Association), which is my summer job, and hopefully spending time with my Cleveland friends and do my marathon training suns
- August 6: drive back to Sík Sándor Cserkészpark to get ready for VK Tábor
- August 7-17: VK Tábor (reprising my role as my aunt's administrative assistant at the annual Hungarian Scout leadership training camp)
- August 18: back in Cleveland to do my camp laundry and pack up all my things
- August 19: drive back to Richmond
- July 1-3: finish any last-minute preparations/packing for Nyári Iskola Tábor and do my marathon training runs
- July 4: drive up to Sík Sándor Cserkészpark in Fillmore, NY to get ready for Nyári Iskola
- July 5-19: help out at Nyári Iskola Tábor (annual Hungarian summer school camp that I haven't been to since I was around 10 years old) with administrative work and try to stick to my marathon training schedule as much as possible
- July 20-August 5: back in Cleveland at my parents' house, working on stuff for KMCsSz (the Hungarian Scout Association), which is my summer job, and hopefully spending time with my Cleveland friends and do my marathon training suns
- August 6: drive back to Sík Sándor Cserkészpark to get ready for VK Tábor
- August 7-17: VK Tábor (reprising my role as my aunt's administrative assistant at the annual Hungarian Scout leadership training camp)
- August 18: back in Cleveland to do my camp laundry and pack up all my things
- August 19: drive back to Richmond
My goal over the next 7 weeks is to stick to the MTT training plan as much as I can, and post here once a week as I recap how training on my own happened for the week. Check back here each week to see my progress!
 |
| enjoying a cold, refreshing Icee pop after yesterday morning's 7 mile group training run with my team |
No comments:
Post a Comment