Tripped up during the morning run

Since I signed up for dailymile.com and my friend has been posting his (long) daily runs, I've been encouraged to add a couple more miles a week to my workouts. The problem is I don't really have extra time to devote to running and I don't want to cut down on weight training, biking, yoga or the elliptical machine.

I thought I would start adding in a few 10-minute mile runs a couple more days a week. It would pick up the pace from my average of 12:30 a mile for long distance runs and I figured it might help me increase my speed for the 5K I am signed up to do on Memorial Day Weekend.

I started out the run at 5.3 mph for a couple minutes and then upped it to 6.3 mph - and that's when I started to encounter a slight problem. See a few months ago I bought a pair of $100 yoga pants. I love them because they are comfy for yoga, weight training, bicycling at the gym and using the elliptical trainer.

When I first bought the pants, my friend told me to consider buying something with a drawstring since I've been on a workout/health food kick. She warned me that if I continued to tone up and lose weight, the pants would not stay up for more than a couple months. Now for the last couple of weeks, I've noticed they've gotten a bit loose but I just pull them back up and go on with the workout. It hasn't been much of a problem - until this morning.

As I sped up the treadmill to 6.7, the yoga pants started to slip down at a bit more rapid pace...and fortunately for me, I was the only person in the gym at the time (although there are security cameras, which the staff hopefully never review.) I held my pants up with one hand as I tried to slow down the treadmill to a walking pace with the other. In the meantime, as I was flailing around and trying not to lose my balance, my new headphones kept getting caught on the treadmill and then I had to struggle not to trip on those. Now a normal person would probably have given up the run at this point, or at least settled for a slower pace. But I was already running late with my workout since I woke up a little late, so I decided to hike the pants back up and speed it up again. I repeated the process a few more times until I completed my mile in 10:45.

I'll have to give my friend a chance to say she told me so. And on my way home from work tomorrow, I have plans to stop at the Gap outlet to get a new pair of workout pants that will hopefully stay up as I run. I need them before my Friday morning run. The $100 yoga pants are going to be relegated to yoga and other light workouts.

Resolution No. 16 set for March

I always joke with my coworkers that I don't do things if I am not good at them. And there is a little bit of truth to that. Singing karaoke - no thanks. Crossword puzzles - ditto. I stick with the things when I know I have the competitive edge.

So it's a bit out of character for me to be signing up for a 5K since I've never been much of a runner. The problem is not that I don't think I could finish a 5K at a slow pace - I work out quite a bit at the gym and walk a mile a day with the dog - but that I don't want to be the last person across the finish line. I know I will never be the first person across the finish line, but I'd like to end up somewhere in the middle of the group.

When I first started seriously thinking about a doing a 5K in January, I figured I'd do the Stinkin' Roses Run, which is during the summer. I figured it would give me plenty of time to start working up to a faster pace for the three-mile trek. I've been doing just that, using a program on the treadmill at the gym twice a week, and adding on one minute each workout. It's a program that goes 3.8 miles at the fastest pace, but is on an incline so I figured once I got on flat terrain I would be better conditioned to run at a faster pace.

But then someone my mom works with started talking about a Wildflower Walk in March. They have a group of people, most of who I know, signed up already. They talked my mom and I into registering for it. So now I have a month to prep.

Today at the gym I tried to see how long it would take me to run a mile at a faster, flat pace. I set the treadmill on a 5K run setting and it started out well. But soon the treadmill was kicking the speed up to 6.6 miles and I couldn't keep up. I slowed it down to 5.3, ran for about 10 minutes, then slowed down for a couple minutes and speed up again. I ran 1.5 miles in 21 minutes, which should be quite an accomplishment considering how out of shape I was a few months ago. But I am not sure it's enough for my competitive streak.

I'll just have to continue the training and see how it goes. And maybe I'll just plan to beat my time in the March run at the July one to fulfill my need to do everything well.