Oh How Time Flies

I sat down thinking I had already written about this training week - but turns out that was last week!  It's been a very busy time - and with trips the next two weekends (Chicago and Wichita), followed by a huge event on June 11, it is going to continue!

Weekly mileage:  52.3

I was back to my "standard" weekly structure this week.  I'm running five days a week now and trying to decide if it's better to add a sixth day or to do a 2-a-day run or two to increase my mileage (learning towards the latter).

Monday - HIIT bootcamp + elliptical

Tuesday - 9 miles base pace (7:34 pace).  I am pretty sure I hit the only break in the rain in 48+ hours for most of this run.  The irony was that I was planning to run 8 miles, but did 9 because the course I wanted to run that morning was a loop that is 9.  There were some light sprinkles and mist in the first 8 miles, but then during mile 9 there was a major downpour.  That will teach me to run farther than planned!

Wednesday - Workout Wednesday and 14.5 total!  10.5 miles total in the morning that included a 5 mile tempo run (6:21 average), 5 minute recovery jog, 1 mile push in 6:05 (all on rolling roads).  Full description here.  Then in the evening I ran an easy shake out with Jon while Albani was at kids' training - 4 miles at 8:05 pace.

Thursday - Shake out 8 miles (8:06 average) with Missy - we were both tired on this one!

Thursday was also the last day of school!

An "oh how time flies" moment!

This is how Bandit felt about it!

Friday - HIIT bootcamp + elliptical

Saturday - 14.1 mile base pace long run (7:35), with 2 fast finish miles in 6:39 and 6:42.  I planned on 12 miles, as I am cutting back on long run distance until I start upping it for my next marathon cycle, but due to some poor calculations on how far I was from home when running Missy back to her car, I ended up back at home at 13.4 miles instead of 12.4 miles like I thought I would.  I realized my error before I started my fast finish miles, so decided I would just go for 14.  One thing I'm not very good at is cut-backs!

Saturday I went to a 6 hour marathon training seminar, along with Jon and Albani (she got a lot of iPad time!).  I learned a few new things, and apparently my form is even worse than I thought, because the coach said that if I fixed my form I would go from a 3:01 marathon PR to a 2:50 marathon PR.  I am going to work on this!!

Playing around after the marathon seminar

Sunday - 6.6 mile shake out with 6 x 20 second strides at the end (7:31 average).  I was planning to do 6 miles, but forgot about the strides until I was at 5.9.  I started this run at 8:10 a.m., which is horribly late for me, and I was dragging from sleeping in until 7:15 a.m., but felt great once I got going.  I practiced the form correction that I am supposed to work on during this run, and either it actually helped me run faster or I wasn't as tired as I thought.  I felt like it was going to be a day where I ran 8:00-8:30 pace for easy, so hopefully the 7:30 average was because the form stuff really does help.  We shall see!

Now off to a day of yard work -- which is more fatiguing and far less enjoyable than running a marathon!