Tuesday, March 17, 2009

I started a 10K clinic

I started a 10K clinic this week. I've decided I want to blog about it. Therefore I've decided to limit blog posts to once a week.

My wife and I planned to get into running again this spring so we went to the Running Room to sign up. There was a 5K clinic on Friday's but Friday's are pretty busy. The other option was Tuesday... a 10K clinic. We decided to sign for it with a bit of reservation, when were asked if we wanted to take part in a research study through Wilfrid Laurier University. We said sure. They said if you get accepted, they'll pay for your clinic fees and race fees! Woo hoo!

So last week we had our first fitness apprasial and there will be one 4 times over the 10 week training period. The study is to "assess the effectiveness of a regular individualized massage therapy program in diminishing indicies of muscle damage/soreness and training discomfort in novice runners progression toward completion of their first 10km road race". Its a mouthful, but those are the words or a real medical study.

Our first run night was Tuesday: 6km and supposed to be steady run...no 10 and 1's which is the typical Running Room program (in the 5K clinic you build gently up to running 10 minutes and walking for 1 minute as a rest). I gathered a group of people who wanted to run 10 and 1s. You can build to a steady 6k run if you are careful with it but for some people, this was their first clinic!

On Wednesday we ran 5K and we still maintained 10and1s. This was our first time ever running two days in a row. We were supposed to run today as well but due to scheduling we skipped it and run Saturday. Besides I have 1 hour of kung fu (wing chun) on Saturday anyway and my wife has belly-dance class practice Friday and Saturday for a recital on Sunday. Besides... I had a lot of blogging to get done!

Next we'll try running up to 4 times a week. According to the schedule by week 4 we'll actually be running 5 times a week. I'll try and keep you posted on my kilometers per week. During the last clinic I didn't miss any runs and I probably made between 12 - 15 km per week.

So far this week I have completed 11Km in just two days!

We're supposed to also keep track of any aches and pains we feel, and if we do any "therapy" to over come it. Usually I'm sore the second day after running, but even with running two days in a row, the pain was much lower then expected. I had sore quads the day of the second run and the run started being a bit difficult because of it, and the next day I did have trouble walking down stairs because of my quads, but now I am pretty much pain free!

Tomorrow we'll try and get in a slow 3K if we can. Hopefully I can also get some stretching or yoga in as well as kung fu... but the weather should be nice enough to ... grrr! clean up the yard!

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