Push Challenge Post-Testing

As I may have mentioned, one of my running friends and I took part in a 3-month fitness challenge at our local gym. It got us out training twice a week lifting weights. Weight training is good for runners, after all. Or so I keep hearing.
I was minimalistic (to say the least) about running this spring, but I did go to the gym faithfully to meet up with my friend and lift weights with the help of a fantastic personal trainer. I don't think I could have done this on my own, but having a friend there with me was fantastic.

What does this have to do with running? Well, as part of the "testing" we did a pre-challenge 3k time trial and a post-challenge 3k time trial. I was curious to see if my times would improve just by doing the weight training. Okay, I was planning to run as well, but that didn't seem to happen as much as it should have.

Having done weight training before Christmas with another friend and skiing throughout winter, I had thought myself in fairly good condition.

Pre-test 3k: 18.27min
Post-test 3k: 15.28min

I was a bit surprised. 3 minutes off my time is not too bad. Not great, but not terrible either. My pass was exactly 1min faster per km. With 5 laps around the track to a km, that's 10 seconds faster on each lap.

I did meet my goal time, in a way. Although I had been really hoping for a sub-5min pace, I knew that wasn't in the cards due to my lack of running fitness. But, I thought, if I can run a sub-15.45min pace, I would be okay with that. And so I set myself up from the start to do 1.02min per each lap (15 laps in a 3k). And while some laps I was a little slower and some laps I was a little faster, that's the pace I kept up the entire time. I was hoping I could speed up the last km of the run, and I was able to do so just a wee bit.

There's one thing to be said...I really miss the training I did in Australia. Every Tuesday we'd do repeats between 800m-3k. It made for a tough morning, but I loved every minute of it...in a love/hate sort of way.

PS - for interest sake, that wasn't the only part to the challenge. My before/after results for the other aspects are as follows:

Wall sit: 1:12 / 4:04
Plank hold: 1:06 / 3:11
Supine back row: 8 / 13
Triple jump distance: 13.8ft / 17.2 ft (why they felt the need to use the archaic Imperial system for this is beyond me)
8kg medicine ball throw:  142 inches / 151 inches (again, Imperial system?!)

Some of these felt a bit meaningless. The run was important for me. But how far can I jump 3 times in a row? How far I can throw an 8kg weight? In what world would that be important?