First long run down!

Well today was my first Sunday long run of approx. 13km, I say approximately because I met with a coach last week who wants me to focus more on time than distance, so the goal for today was an 80 min. run which I did and also know that the distance was 13km. So woohooooo!!!! I felt pretty good all the way along, it was a beautiful morning, 18 degrees and sunny, just perfect! I started out with the water bottle belt, first time, but had to off-load it in someone's mailbox enroute, just not comfy with it. Picked it up on the way back with about 20 min left to go... I did need the water by that point! I think I'll try to go out and plant water along the route the night before instead of using the belt, for most runs anyway. I kept my pace in check using my HR monitor, HR 140's throughout. The Sunday long run is all about "time on your legs" and making sure at the end you feel you could do more, especially for the "short" long runs. Todays run was a real confidence builder for me, I felt like I could have run much longer, which is a good thing since obviously I will have to! But it's a good sign that I'm making progress in my training because I've had shorter runs where I'm lucky to finish. What's making a difference is using the HR monitor which forces me to keep my pace slower, improving my endurance.

So about the coach... I'm so excited! I meet with him last Thursday and immediately knew it was the right thing to start working with him. He's passionate about running, trail running, marathons, ultra marathons... he's on a running streat having run every single day for the past 19 years! It's amazing! I should be getting my complete training program for the month in a couple of days, but he gave me a couple of days training until then. As I mentioned, it focuses more on time and pace than distance. I can't wait to see what's in store! I hope it includes some intervals or speed work of some kind, I'm anxious to push it a bit more to get my pace up. I'm thinking of adding in SPIN classes and elliptical this week as a second training session, hope this fits with the plan:)

It's a beautiful day here in the Thousand Island, Joe's golfing this afternoon so I'm going to hang out with Kali and Lucy soaking in the sun and reading a book:)

Cheers!