91 days 22 hours 56 minutes 13 seconds

Today was the first tempo run.

Instructions:
Today you are going to begin with a 15 minute jog. Repeat the following 4 times: run 5 minutes at tempo pace followed by 1 minute of easy running. Finish the workout with 10 minutes of light jogging.
Coach's Notes:
Tempo runs are to be done at a pace where you could carry on a conversation but you would prefer not to. However, you are not to reach an anaerobic pace. On all tempo runs: warm up for at least 10 minutes, sustain your pace for the designated time and cool down for at least 10 minutes (i.e. 45 min. (T) = 10 minutes of warm up, 25 minutes of sustained effort, and 10 minutes of cool down). Recommended heart rate is 85% of your maximum.

I ended up back at the YMCA on the treadmill for the workout. I have been wearing my Garmin 305 and heart rate monitor when running to see about what zone i am in when running. Warmup was fine, by ten minutes my heart rate was about 145. Thats about the normal on the easy runs. Then in the first 5 minute tempo @ 8:34 it went up to about 170-175. During recovery it dropped back down fairly quick to the 140's. I did a 2 minute recovery in between instead of one minute. The second tempo was the same on heart rate but seemed easier. The third and four were horrid! I almost felt like it was going to past out. The 10 minute cool down was more like a 5 minute walk then back up to 10:30 for the last 5 minutes. I did walk another 5 for cool down. I hope it gets easier as time goes by, I am sure it will. 

I have been stretching a lot after my runs about 5-10 minutes. I have been getting so tight lately and haven't really done a lot of stretching in the past, so I wanted to get a jump on it.

"IRONMAN YMCA"

Walking out of the cardio room I notice a pin up that said IronMan. Its a challenge of different levels to complete Ironman distances within a certain time or even smaller levels if you want. I think Gold level if you do the full distance within two weeks. Silver within 4 weeks and Bronze if done in 6 weeks. For the Elite the 26.2 has to be all running or jogging to count. It can be on the treadmill or outside. The bike 112 has to be in a upright normal position bike, not a sit down, lean back one. It can be a exercise, spin, trainer or even outside. The 2.4 swim has to be done in on lap days. None of the distances have to been done at one time. There is a log that you record all your workouts and once you hit your goal you finished that category. So of course I signed up for it. You get a cool shirt when you finish, so why not!