Building up to 9 miles

To the commenter who asked about how whether I was on a program to build up to running nine miles – yes and no. About a month ago, I told my sister’s boyfriend that I would be stepping up and running the Presidio 10 as a 10 mile race as opposed to a 10K. He emailed me a running schedule and training program for the weeks leading up to it and I’ve been doing that program for the last three weeks.

But here’s what led up to that. Before I say anything else, I need to point out I have a long history with exercise. I’ve always ran and was on the track team in high school. In fact, I was an aerobics instructor in college. As an aside, my classes always had waiting lists because both women and men thought I was great to learn from. For the women, they liked not having to compare their bodies to the person teaching them and for the men, they wanted to see a dude aerobics. This is all to say exercise and I have been old friends. I’ve run 5k’s and 10k’s my whole life.

Once I graduated from college, not having a sport to compete in or a class to teach meant that I would go on this binge-purge cycle of exercise. Running a lot for a month but then slacking off for a week which led to slacking off for a month. With the diabetes diagnosis, I had a huge incentive to exercise regularly – eating what I wanted. As I’ve said before, exercise lower your blood glucose level so exercising after eating means that you have a little more leeway about what you eat. Also, when I was losing weight, my nutritionist told me not to be concern about the fat in my diet since it was being burned off during exercise. Exercise = eating bacon. A win win proposition.

Here’s the progression:
A year and a half ago after the diagnosis, I ran four times a week on the treadmill for three miles per session. I was doing a 10 minute/mile pace.

After about three months, I increased my speed to about a 9:30 minute/mile pace and made one of the runs a four mile run at a 10 minute/mile pace.

The following month, I increased one of my slow runs to 5 miles.

When I ran my first 5 mile race in January 2009 and did great, I increased my short runs to 4 miles and increase my pace to 9:15 minute/mile.

Upon committing to do Bay to Breakers (12k or 7.4 miles), I upped my long run to 6 miles for a month and then to 7.5.

After Bay to Breakers, 9 months after the diagnosis, I reduced the number of runs to three per week but with increased intensity – a 9 minute/mile pace.

During the summer, with no race in the near future, I increased my short runs to 5 miles at the same pace and omitted the long run (just made it another 5 miles)

When I made my commitment to run Bay to Breakers AND do Presidio 10 as a 10 miler, I reintroduced the long run of 7 miles but would only do that twice a month.

And that leads us to this point where I am doing a set training program leading up to 10 miles.