O2 B Thin and Fast

Recently I cashed in my birthday present--the personal O2 training. I was waiting to be sufficiently recovered before starting such an intense program. What it entails is running in specific heart-rate zones, on a treadmill for an hour, to develop my aerobic base and train my body to become more efficient at burning fat. I'm hoping it will burn off all my fat and make me run 8-minute miles, in six easy weeks. :-O

Kay, my trainer, is very mature for her 22 years. She encourages me and doesn't laugh when she sez "good job." I think I surprised her when I told her I ran two marathons in the past 9 months. She's training for the Wisconsin Ironman, which is a month from now. It's her first, and she hasn't even run a marathon yet. Part of me wants to admire her for being able to take on such an event and part of me wants her to fall on her face! Can you at least try to make it look hard. What a difference age makes.

Today she had me run 4 miles on the treadmill--with the incline set to 2. I could go as fast or as slow as I wanted, and at the end of the program I'll do it again to see how much I improved. I figured 4 miles=50 minutes, but it took me 55. And I took 1 minute walking breaks every 9 minutes. I hope to hell I improve! I'm blaming it on the lack of air-conditioning.

In other news, my health club bought my old health club so now I can run with my old running club. Yay! I haven't yet, but plan to soon. Most of the gang are training for the Twin Cities Marathon, and I am not up to double-digit mile runs yet. I ran 6 last Saturday. How can I run a marathon, and then struggle to do 10 miles? Last Saturday was the Urban Wildland Half-marathon, a race I've done the past two years, but I simply was not up to running 13.1.

On the day of the Twin Cities Marathon, there is also a 10 mile race which is billed as "the shortcut to the capitol." I was hoping to run it, but did not make the lottery. I could have still gotten an entry in exchange for some volunteer work, but I didn't know if I would be here on volunteer day. I'm traveling a lot, because my husband and I are building a house in California and need to check on progress.

Since I'm not doing the TC-10, I signed up for the Big Sur Half Marathon, which is actually in Monterey. The race is on October 29, so I have lots of time to train. I was a little hesitant about signing up, until I looked at the course map. I know that route! I ran it in April '05 for a long run when I was training for the TCM. It has some of the most awesome ocean scenery around. And finishers get that cool hippie medal. It's not quite Tiffany, but it will do.

I will be away from my blog for about 10 days. I'm flying to L.A., then driving back with my friend P and her two kids. P doesn't like to fly, so she drove out there a month ago to visit family and asked me to accompany her back. It should be fun.

In the meantime, Plods and Stephano are back from their respective vacations. AmyBee had a birthday. And Back of Pack is Haulin' Aspen this Sunday. She's one tuff mama. Another tuff mama, 21st Century Mom, ran the San Francisco Marathon on July 30, under less than ideal conditions. She's posted since then, but has written an excellent race report.

C-ya later.