My 10km PR

I did an upper body workout on Friday with my 8lb. dumbbells.  I had moved them out of the living room last week and when I don't see them or trip over them, I don't think to use them much.

My workout consisted of 10 each of the following:

• bicep curls
• tricep kickbacks
• lateral raises
• overhead presses
• deltoid raises
• upright rows
• pushups

I repeated it 3 times and then did:

• 15 standing abductor lifts
• 10 standing adductor lifts

All in all, 20 minutes and a good stretch for the lats and triceps after.  Good.  I really do want my arms to be toned when the Moeben sleeves I won on a giveaway at Life as I See It arrive in the mail.  (And, if you didn't know, there is another one on right now until September 19th so go check it out.)

Today is our last Saturday in this house we have been looking after since mid-August... on Monday we will clean from top to bottom and do up laundry, before moving back to the sailboat.  Not sure when our winter house/kitty-sit will start this year.  We may be on the boat through part of the winter, which is always a fun challenge.... especially if it is very rainy or cool.

The day started out the best way possible food-wise.  Steaming hot coffee and pancakes, eggs, and what might be the last of the blackberries this season.  And even tastier cause I don't have to make it!

Happy plates cause they know what's coming....

Mine has extra berries on top.

Look at that purple cake.  Love it.. so sweet it needs very little syrup.

The Captain enjoyed some golf on tv while I did some work on my food blog and some laundry... and then after lunch, FINALLY, a run!

I know that on Monday the run will be a short one so decided to do 10km today.  I thought The Captain might only want to do 5 km with me so I chose to run the same 5 km route that I have been using lately... first one way, then in reverse, so that he could opt out of the 2nd go-round if he chose to do so.

He was wearing new running shoes today... sleek silver grey Nikes with a bright orange swoosh... I kept asking him how his legs and knees were feeling and it wasn't till we were finished the whole 10km that he admitted he could feel his knees.  But I am getting ahead of myself.

I decided before we even began that I would be doing 9/1 run/walk intervals today. I got such supportive and helpful comments on my last post about using them (thanks to everyone who commented) and so decided that today I would run a bit faster during the 9 minutes of running than I would have if I hadn't planned to have walk breaks at all.  I hoped to get it done in less than the 84 minutes it took last time I ran 10 km and was shooting for 80 minutes, which would give me an average of 8 minutes per kilometer.

I also carried a half litre of water for the 2 of us to share... it was a nice day,  not too hot, with a bit of a breeze.  My favorite running weather.

We set off at a nice clip and the first 5 km went pretty quickly.  I thought about my cadence and used my lean to speed up and slow down and was really happy and at ease with my form.  It took 36.5 minutes, which is slower than my PR but still a good time for me.  Then we turned around and ran back.  During that last kilometer my hips started to ache and it was all uphill, so I made sure to keep my stride short. 

I kept thinking about something I read on Why I Run a few months ago.  It was 'embrace the suck' so that is what I tried to do!  Actually, I think about that whenever I feel a little pain.  It makes me smile and I can kick a bit harder.

So we finished the 2nd half in 40 minutes - all done in 76.5 minutes which was nicely under the 80 minutes I was hoping for.... a 10km PR and I am so happy about it!  But it was still hard and I long for the day when 10 km (6.25 miles) is just an easy outing for me.

We had a good stretch and both drank a couple of glasses of water and The Captain's knees were feeling good again.  I got out a couple of packets of Weight Watchers carmel latte smoothie mixes, and whizzed them up with 1 cup of unsweetened vanilla Almond Breeze, 1/2 cup of cold coffee, 1/2 cup of cold water, and 1 banana.  It was sensational... I hadn't tried these smoothie mixes before and was happy to read that there are 10g of protein in each serving.  Very nice!

W3 R76.5 @ 9/1 W3
stretch 6

I think another upper body workout should be in order Sunday, with a walk perhaps.