A New Training Plan, A New Game Plan

I know, you're probably thinking this is a joke, how many training plans can she go through!? I don't know, I'll go through as many as I want until I find one that's right for me, but I think this might be it.

This new plan consists of only 3 runs a week...that's it, just 3! Tuesday and Thursday I'm supposed to run for 30 min and then Saturdays are the long run days starting at 3 miles the first week then 4 then 5 all the way up to 14 and then begin to taper off a few weeks before the big race.

Yesterday was a bit of a dreary day with rain and chilly weather (at least it was at 6:30 in the morning when I was packing my gym bag). So, since it was Tuesday and I HAD to get a run in I mentally preparred myself for going to the gym and using the dreadmill. I had a pretty good run/jog/walk. In 30 min with a 5 min slow warm up and a 3 min slow cool down I went 2 miles. I don't really care what my final distance was since I was able to actually run for longer periods of time during those 2 miles, and that's where the progress is being made. There was not one point yesterday when I felt like my lungs were going to explode out of my chest, woo hooo! My longest stint was a little over a half of a mile, which is an improvement so I'm happy about that. I also noticed that it was much easier to pace myself on the dreadmill, and without my ipod. Once you set the machine at 5.2 that's as fast (or as slow) as you're going to go, making the pacing part much easier. I've noticed that when I run at home, throughout the neighborhood I go a bit to fast, get winded much easier, and don't make it nearly as far as I'd like, plus, if I have my ipod on and the song is a fast one, which most of them are, forget it, I run to the beat of the music (guess that's the dancer in me creeping back out).

So, now I'm faced with which means of running to use, outside enjoying the scenery, or inside where I can have a machine pace me and I don't have to think about it. I'm not sure, but luckily for me Mother Nature may be the one making that decision since it's almost November and about to get pretty cold here.