July 2nd Preview

The subtle jumps in distances take you to 1¾ miles this Tuesday. Quarter-mile steps up might not seem like much week to week, but they will more than double how far you’ll go here by August.

The route (with same start/finish as last week, but begin/end in opposite direction):  Take bike path north to 24^th Avenue… Turn left to Amazon trailhead, then follow the one-kilometer loop out on street side to flagged turn and back on creek side… Return to start on bike path. My GPS measurement is 1.75 miles.

Weather forecast continues good for our activity: partly sunny with day’s high of 75.

LESSON 5: Taking Time

Your second most valuable piece of equipment, after shoes is.... no, not shorts and not T-shirt. You can wear other clothes than those. Your next most vital item is a timer. Use a watch or smartphone with a stopwatch feature, and make time your main way of keeping score. Time can make you an instant winner by telling exactly how fast you ran a distance, and maybe how much you improved your personal record (“PR,” in runner-talk). Another, more subtle value of the timer: It lets you use minutes instead of miles as your main measurement. This has several benefits: freeing you from plotting and measuring courses, because minutes are the same length anywhere... easing pressure to run faster, because you can’t make time pass any faster... finishing at the assigned time limit no matter your pace, which settles naturally into your comfort zone when you run by time.

June 25th Results (1.5 miles)

Thanks for introducing yourselves today. That helps me get to know you, but more importantly you get acquainted with each other – and see what a wide range of histories (running and otherwise) you bring to this class.

Starting today, I award “extra credits” two ways – for who comes closest to matching last week’s pace (Al and Joyce at plus 7 seconds per mile), and who improves most from one run to the next (Ben at minus 15 seconds per mile).

TUESDAY’S 1.5 MILES

(with per-mile pace from my watch; your own time and distance might have varied)

Al – 25:29 (16:59 pace)

Joyce – 25:29 (16:59 pace)

Ashley – 16:21 (10:54 pace)

Beth – 16:24 (10:56 pace)

Laura – 16:21 (10:54 pace)

Malisa – 23:51 (15:54 pace)

Carolyn – 21:05 (14:03 pace)

Anne – 15:13 (10:08 pace)

Will – 14:09 (9:26 pace)

Debbie – 23:51 (15:54 pace)

Aatrayee – 18:43 (12:29 pace)

Ben – 10:23 (6:55 pace)

LESSON 4: Your Pace

Pace has two meanings, one mathematical and the other physical. The first – a key figure for any runner to know – is a calculation of your minutes/seconds per mile. Divide the total time by the distance (remembering to convert seconds to tenths of a minute; an 8:30 mile is 8.5 minutes). The second meaning is even more important: how you find your best pace. On most runs, this means pacing yourself comfortably – neither too fast nor too slow. There are several ways to arrive at that pace. The most technical is to wear a heart-rate monitor and to run between 70 and 80 percent of maximum pulse. Another is to know your maximum speed for that distance, then add one to two minutes per mile. The simplest: Listen to your breathing; if you aren’t gasping for air and can talk while you run, your pace is not too fast. Your effort should stay constant through the run, but your pace-per-mile seldom does. Expect the pace to pick up as you warm up.

June 25th Preview

Our first Tuesday together taught me some lessons, to. The main one was the need to change slightly our start/finish spot. Last week’s sat too directly on the main bike/hike path. We’ll move closer to the kids’ playground… after meeting at the same place as before (northwest side of Amazon Community Center).

The distance this time will be 1.5 miles, or almost half a 5K. The route: to south end of woodchip trail, then the full one-mile lap there (north on creek side, back on street side) and return to start. GPS distance on my watch is 1.50 miles.

Weather forecast is again friendly to runners: day’s high of 72 and partly cloudy.

Bob Coll at the Eugene Running Company has confirmed that you qualify for a 10-percent discount on products at his store. Just mention that you are in my City of Eugene 5K class.

LESSON 3: Warmup/Cooldown

Don’t confuse stretching with warmup. Stretching exercises don’t start you sweating or raise your heart rate. You warm up by moving – first by walking or running slowly or a separate quarter-mile or so, then by easing into the full pace of the day in early stages of the run itself. When the run ends, resist the urge to stop suddenly. Instead, walk another five minutes to cool down more gradually. Then comes the best time for stretching – at the end, when you loosen the muscles that running has tightened.

June 18th Results (1.25 miles)

Good to meet and watch this first dozen of you in action this evening. We lucked out on weather, which stayed about as kind as can be expected this time of year.

In each run from today onward, I quote your time in pace per mile. This will give you a standard for comparison as runs vary in distance each week.

There’s no such thing as “too slow.” You’re ahead of everyone who isn’t here.

Thanks to Laurel, who made this class happen, for attending today. She also offered to step up and help as needed.

And thanks for sharing your phone numbers for texting, if necessary. Mine is 541-953-7179.

JUNE 18^TH RESULTS

(with per-mile pace based on GPS distance of 1.25, which is 2 kilometers; these are measurements and times from my watch, and yours might vary)

Al – 21:05 (16:52 pace)

Joyce – 21:05 (16:52 pace)

Ashley – 12:45 (10:52 pace)

Beth – 13:24 (10:43 pace)

Laura – 13:06 (10:29 pace)

Malisa – 18:22 (14:41 pace)

Carolyn – 16:27 (13:10 pace)

Anne – 12:07 (9:41 pace)

Will – 9:27 (7:34 pace)

Debbie – 18:22 (14:41 pace)

Aatrayee – 15:50 (12:16 pace)

Ben – 8:58 (7:10 pace)

LESSON 2: F-I-T Formula

Our runs in this class will average 20 to 30 minutes long. This amount is based on the research of Dr. Kenneth Cooper, a giant in the fitness field. Cooper’s formula for improving as a runner: Run two to three miles, three to five days a week at a comfortable pace. It’s easier to remember as the F-I-T formula: Frequency – three to five runs a week; Intensity – comfortable pace; Time – about 20 to 30 minutes. Even with walking breaks you can cover two miles in a half-hour, and many of you can comfortably run three miles (or more) in that time. You take this easy run only once a week in class, but the effort should be low enough so you could repeat it at least two more days of every week.