One Hour Runner COMPLETE!!!

If I do say so myself...What an accomplishment!

This is the actual path that I ran today.

I can't believe I actually did it. I wasn't feeling well, had a splitting headache, but I went anyway. I really wanted to finish the program this weekend so it had to be tonight. I'm not going to lie, it was tough. As a matter of fact I stopped at 51 minutes and had to walk it off, my negative..I can't make it..it's too this...I'm too that.. voice in my head before I could finish the last 9 minutes.

Here is another thing that makes it amazing. Let say you, the reader are an average sized person, 15-20 pounds give or take to what your weight should be. Now, pick up 7 sacks of potatoes and run for hour and you'd be me.

Oh and an amazing second point...after completing C25K a 9 week program and then the OHR program which was 10 weeks I didn't shed a pound. Life's a bitch huh?

So the question now becomes...what's next? I've been reading one of Runners World's books the Complete Book of Women's Running and there is an intermediate program in it that somewhat follows the same training as OHR with a few differences.

For starters it's a 16 week program instead of 10. It has 4 scheduled runs per week instead of just 3. It goes something like this:

For weeks 1-8: Each weekly run on day 1 and day 3 are always 30 min.

30, 30, 30, 35

30, 30, 30, 40

30, 35, 30, 45

30, 35, 30, 50

30, 35, 30, 55

30, 35, 30, 60

30, 40, 30, 60

30, 45, 30, 60

For the next 8 weeks you add a day, fartleks (speed play), and hills.

30, 20, 30, 30, 60

30, 20, 35, 30, 60

30, 20, 40, 30, 60

30, 20, 45, 30, 60

30, 20. 45 (middle 20 fartlek), 30, 60

30, 20, 45 with hills, 30, 60

30, 20, 45 (middle 20 fartlek), 30, 60

30, 20, 45 with hills, 30, 60

I don't know, the last 8 weeks sound serious. Am I that serious about running? What happens when summer comes again and I can barely walk in the heat let alone pull off an hour?

I think I'll end up doing a tweaked version of this. After all I'm only running 3 days a week, sometimes 4 and bumping up to 5 seems like a marriage, far too much work.

I'm also reading ChiRunning. Who knows maybe something will come of it. Stay tuned.