Running Reflection: March 3rd - 9th

On Running Apps:

Does anyone else feel super strongly about their running app? As a Garmin-less runner, I'm dependent upon my phone to gather data about each of my runs... and perhaps guilty of whipping out my phone to check out my stats on non-run days more often than I should.

For the first 10ish months of my running life, I religiously used RunKeeper. Every once in a while, though, someone would post a map of their run that just looked so cool. I had to get Nike+. I needed to see the color gradient that changed based on relative pace. That's all there was to it.

After swallowing the fact that I couldn't easily import all of my RunKeeper runs into Nike+ (they're a little more stringent than RK about being able to "prove" you did the run), I decided to give it a try, and boy is it fun to have a new running app. On each of my Saturday long runs so far, I've gotten a neat little selection of banners telling me about how I've just run my farthest/longest run and burned the most calories. It's nice, after so long without this, to see immediate progress. Even if I really have run farther, longer, burned more calories, and done so at a higher average pace.

Here's this Saturday's run in a nutshell:

See that strip of red/orange at the bottom? My running group leader labeled that segment of our run "the five deadly hills." She wasn't kidding, and only three out of twenty of us went for it. I felt like a regular hero walking into the bagel shop for breakfast after everyone else had finished up their 4-7 mile runs.

Here's how my week of training went:

• Monday: Grad school class until 8pm, rest day.
• Tuesday: 3.00 miles / 8:51 pace. I ran to make up for the grocery shopping damage I knew I was about to do!
• Wednesday: Weight circuit and 45 minutes on the elliptical.
• Thursday: 4.04 miles / 8:45 pace. First time I've ever tried saran wrapping my phone. Worked like a charm!
• Friday: 1.90 miles / 11:18 pace. Trail run with Pops, getting ready for his second 5k.
• Saturday: 9.46 miles / 9:23 pace. Third run with ESR, a good chunk of the Mercer Island Half Marathon route. Brutal hills.
• Sunday: Weigh circuit and 50 minutes elliptical.

Total Distance: 18.40 miles
Average Pace: 9:22 per mile. I even considered pulling Friday's pace out of this (as I was running with a buddy rather than on my own) but woo hoo!


Last Week's Goals:

1. Run 18 miles. (Beat it!)
2. Average pace below 9:30 per mile. (Beat it!)
3. Run 3 times. (Beat it!)

Goals for Next Week:

1. Don't worry about distance; my usual Saturday long run time will be spent shamrocking out with Pops for his second 5k.
2. Enjoy my Tuesday run with a colleague at school.
3. Run three times.

What's the next race you're planning on? Do you count the pace and mileage of "fun" runs? What's the biggest thing you look for when you're finding your next race?