Six Days Until the BolderBOULDER!

My next fitness challenge is only six days away. Next Monday (Memorial Day!), I’ll be in Boulder, Colorado, running with my sister Sarah in the BolderBOULDER, a ginormous 10K race that attracts runners from all over the world.

Because of my back-to-back stair climb challenges, I wasn’t able to start focusing on 10K training until about two weeks ago, after finishing my 163-Story Burj Khalifa Challenge. When the time came to step away from the StairMaster (finally), and get into a running mood, I wasn’t very excited. I hadn’t run in a couple months, and, if I’m being honest, I wasn’t really looking forward to it.

Then I had a couple really wonderful runs in New York City last weekend (including one across the Queensboro Bridge and back), and since getting back from the Big Apple, I’ve had a couple more really wonderful runs.

In total, I’ve run four times in the eight days since getting back from New York:

May 14: I lifted weights at Crunch in Burbank, and afterwards, decided to go on a short run to get a little cardio in. That part of Burbank is fantastic for running, because it’s built at the base of the mountains, and all the streets in one direction are pretty much flat, but all the streets in the other direction ascend a big hill that gets steeper as you get higher.

I intended to run for 10-15 minutes, and ended up running for 29 minutes, the first half of which was entirely uphill.

The route totaled 2.7 miles, and I averaged 5.6 mph. Not bad, considering I had already spent 50 minutes in the gym beforehand!

May 16: Another day that started with about 50 minutes in the gym, lifting weights – and I planned on hitting the streets afterward for another uphill run, but I stepped outside and it was ridiculously, unbearably hot. So I went back into the gym and got on a treadmill. I don’t like treadmill running – since running is something that can so easily be done outdoors, I’d much rather do it there. But I ran 22 minutes – which might be a record treadmill run for me. I don’t remember how many miles I ran, but I averaged 5.5 mph (and, toward the end, was pushing 6 mph).

May 17: Time for a longer run. Since it was still quite hot during the day, I held off until late at night, when it was much cooler, and then hit the streets. I used RunKeeper, which I’m quickly growing to love, because it tracks everything and assembles all the data into nifty little reports:

This part of the world is pretty flat, so I’m not sure exactly where I climbed 114 feet, but the rest of the stats seems pretty on-target: 4.4 miles, 47 minutes, 5.6 mph.

May 20: Another long run, also late at night. My goal was to run for an hour without stopping, and I did exactly that, with a bonus two seconds to boot! I picked a neighborhood not far from my house and ran up and down every street in it, some more than once:

Some highlights of this run included almost face-planting after tripping over a sidewalk crack (I recovered, barely, and didn’t fall) and nearly crapping my pants after a dog behind a fence startled me.

And I came so close to actually running a 10K! I was .3 miles short – but not a big deal, because my average speed (5.9 mph) was the fastest I’ve been in months!

Time to add these runs to my Running Chart.

I’m feeling much better, with these runs under my belt, about running the BolderBOULDER than I was a few weeks ago. Bring it on!

Keep it up, David!