Stuggling - Adventures With the Next Generation

Stuggling is when you combine studying (like for a science test) with snuggling (like in a comfortable bed). My daughter came up with the term tonight when she really wanted to snuggle and not do homework. I told her when we finished math we could snuggle while we study science - hence stuggling.

This same daughter is the one who has been inspired by my running to someday run a marathon herself. We will work up to that over time, but for this year, we are training to run a 5K together. During Disney's Minnie Marathon Weekend we are teaming up to run the Go Red For Women 5K where mother/daughter or sister/sister teams can run a 5K event around Lake Buena Vista and the Disney Village. We have developed a training plan leading up to this May 5th race.

This morning we ran just over a mile together. The plan calls for 10-15 min of run walking. We are running for 1 min and walking for 1 min. This seems to work really well. Over the weeks leading up to the 5K, we will slowly increase our time running to 30+ minutes and distance to 4 miles. We will work toward a 4 min run and 1 min walk approach. It will all depend on what my daughter is ready for. We are doing this at her pace.

What is so very cool is that we get to just run and talk together the entire time. That is priceless!

Before my run with my daughter, I did a 3.1 mile tempo run. Tempo runs, per the definition I found on-line, is running at about 85 - 90% max heart rate, running at a level that pushes you, but doesn't exhaust you, thus pushing that lactate threshold. I started out a bit fast but quickly got my heart rate up to my 169 bpm target. The 3 miles were pretty much in the 168-175 bpm range, which I think was where I wanted to be. My times:

Mile 1: 9:54 min
Mile 2: 10:15 min
Mile 3: 10:24 min
Mile 0.1: :47 min

Total: 3.1 miles for 31:20 min - nearly my 5K race pace.

I took 3 - 30 sec walking breaks at 1 mile, 1.5 miles and 2 miles.

Heart rate:
Mile 1: Avg 153, Max 172 (rate at end of mile 1)
Mile 2: Avg 171, Max 174 (good tempo)
Mile 3: Avg 171, Max 174

So the heart rate may have been a little high, but not bad.

Finally, after a tough tempo run, the best part of the morning was the two laps around the block with my daughter. We covered 1.1 miles running 1 min and walking 1 minute.

Time: 14:56 min
Avg HR: 142 bpm, Max HR: 153 bpm

As you can tell, I was feeling much better today than yesterday, not just physically, but emotionally as a very proud mom!