A Week of Cross Training

This past week was perhaps one of my most non-running weeks in terms of days ran. 4 out of 7 days I did not run at all, although I did do some other exercising.

Sunday - Rest Day
Monday - 3.05 (Treadmill)
Tuesday - 7.02 (Paved Path; 1hr Timed Run)
Wednesday - 5k Race, .55 Mile Cool Down (Paved Road)
Thursday - Rest Day
Friday - Rest Day
Saturday - Rest Day

Despite the 4 non-running days I was still able to log in 13.72 miles for the week, above my previous training goal of 13.1 a week. Monday I ran some on the treadmill as a warm up for some weight training, which I try to do at least 2-3 days a week. Tuesday I decided to do an hour long run at a decent, but slower than usual pace. This is something that I have neglected to do in the past because I always focused on the miles ran rather than the time spent running. And finally I ran the 5k on the 4th.

Where running stopped I added in a few other activities: Softball and Tennis. I think it is a must, not only for running, but for all around health to cross train, to do more than one or two activities. Softball is a sport I love to play with the friends but don't to do it too often. On the 4th, after the 5k, we were able to get a game scheduled. It was a 100 degrees I might add, so that was tough. Using my Garmin Forerunner 205 I found out that I had run about 2.8 miles in the almost 3 hours of actual play time. Not a bad workout, one that works the upper and lower body muscles. And finally I went to Yuba City to play in a tennis tournament with the family. I was in mixed doubles with my sister Rochelle and my parents were in a different draw playing mixed doubles together. Again, the weather was 100 on Saturday and mid to high 90s on Sunday, so we had our work cut out for us. My sister and myself were in a round robin draw since there weren't quite enough teams registered. Only three total. Kind of a bummer, but then you look at the bright side and realize that you are guaranteed 2 matches. So pluses and minuses, but a huge plus is that we won both matches and thus won our draw, adding another 1,000 points towards entrance to the Grand Prix Tournament at the end of the year. So after 4 hours of tennis in a 100 degrees I feel I had adequate exercise for the running I missed.

Now on to the Los Gatos Jungle Run Half Marathon at the end of the week, one I've been looking forward to for a while now. I think it'll be the best showcase of how my training has come along, more so than the Santa Cruz Half Marathon I ran earlier in the year, and it will be good preparation for the San Francisco Marathon at the end of the month.