CURRENTLY PLAYING: Bruce Springsteen – Magic Album
(Figured I'd let you all know what was pumping through my headphones as I write all this craziness.)
So let me just say, this whole project isn’t about me. This is about something bigger than me. Much bigger that all of us. It’s about taking a small leap to help make a huge difference. I'm so eager to get this started, in part, because there are only eight short weeks till race day (eeekkk!!!), and because I’m so ready to see other people get excited about a great cause.
As I said in the first blog I’ll be keeping track of my training through this blog as well many other things. I found my training plan through Runner’s World.com. (As a side note: Runner’s World is my go-to site for all things running: newest shoes, gear, races, training plans, etc! It doesn’t matter if you have never run a mile before or you have already run five marathons, I guarantee that Runner’s World has what you’re looking for. Alright enough about how much I love them, it’s not like I’m getting paid to brag about their website but there is a direct link to the site on the left side bar!) There is a thing called “Smart Coach” on the website that allows you to enter what length of race you are training for, how many weeks you want to train, a current race time for whatever distance you choose, how hard you want to train, and it even allows you to pick the race day. Then the website works its magic and poof! You have a training plan in a matter of seconds. So for my training plan I knew I needed ten weeks based on my current cardio and physical level. I printed out both a training plan at the moderate and hard level (the difference is three days of running versus four days of running, respectively). Since I’ve been doing great with my training I'm switching to the hard plan come week four! Since I’m finishing out week three, there are only two more runs this week which are five miles tomorrow, Thursday 16th, and then a long seven miles on Sunday 19th.
Here is my personal training plan. The dates on the side are off because I had to recreate this since I lost my original copy but it is the exact same plan so I will let you know the day and week I am on!
For tomorrow, Thursday of Week 3, my training plan says: five miles including a warm up, three miles at 8:25 pace, and a cool down. It just so happens that there is a lovely 5K race here in Wilmington tomorrow. It is the Historic Wilmington Foundation 5K in downtown at 6:30 on the Riverwalk (feel free to come out & support). The money raised from the race goes towards Historic Wilmington Foundation and preservation across the Lower Cape Fear region. I don’t think there is anything better than a positive contribution back to the area you live in! Now clearly a 5K is only 3.1 miles, so I’ll be running a little more than three miles at a faster pace but as long as I warm up a mile and cool down a mile to get the total five miles in, that’s really what matters.
As I was sitting here trying to come up with ideas on how to get people involved in all this crazy music, running and cancer research thing, I decided that I would challenge myself a little more than I already will be tomorrow. So my personal goal is to obviously at least hit my time mark of 8:25 per mile, which would give me a finishing time just over 25 minutes. (Truthfully I would like to finish in less than 24 minutes – just not so sure I am in that great of shape just yet!) So my challenge to myself and to really show that I’m serious about raising money for cancer research, I’m going to personally donate my finishing time in dollars. Now in case some of you don’t know, I’m a single female living alone with one job as a server in a restaurant here in Wilmington. I, like everyone else have bills to pay and often skip meals to make sure the electricity stays on, so it’s kind of a big deal for me to give $25 plus dollars when sometimes that is all I make in a lunch shift. But that’s how serious I’m about this cause. And if I can do it, and make some sacrifices for cancer research then you can surely give up the Dollar Menu at McDonald’s one day and donate a little as well!
I’m super amped about the race tomorrow and ready to get out there with my Amped 4-a-Cure shirt and just get people asking what this is all about! I talk a lot, and now I have something amazing to talk about! Stayed tuned to find out how much I actually end up donating tomorrow! Thanks for reading… never forget you too can make a difference!
xoxo
Mary Jo
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