Summer's Here & Finishing the Week in Chicago

Week of May 23-29:

My “normal” schedule was tweaked a bit this week based on my training partner’s schedule and on travel, but I got in a solid 55.2 miles and also came away ready for my planned cut-back week next week.

Monday – HIIT bootcamp 45 min. + elliptical 45 min. (the Monday usual, but feeling a bit draggy)

Tuesday – Speed workout!  Full description here.  I felt peppy again on this one and knocked out 10 miles total with repeats of 2 miles (12:24), 1.5 mile (9:11), 1 mile (5:59), and 0.5 mile (2:54) on the roads.  My splits exceeded my goal times of 12:30, 9:15, 6:05, and 3:00, and I walked away feeling good about this.  It was the first run of the season that I was so hot I took off my shirt and ran in my sports bra (note to self:  increase ab work).

Wednesday – 16.1 total (12.1 a.m. and 4 p.m.).  I had 8-12 base pace miles planned in the morning depending on how I felt, and I met up with Missy just before an imminent thunderstorm.  We ran through some periods of heavy rain, but for the most part the weather wasn’t THAT bad.  I will run in anything and so will she, so it was just a question of what we might have to deal with!  I learned that the outfit I had on held onto a lot of water, even after I shed the tank top.  I felt better than I expected after Tuesday’s workout, so went for the 12 miles (7:35 average).  

During the day at work, my legs started to feel the miles…around that magic 36 hours post-workout the fatigue really set in from Tuesday’s workout, and it was just in time for me to do a second run!  As usual, I hemmed and hawed about whether or not to actually do the second run, and the only reason I decided that I actually would was because I was planning a day off Thursday (and a little bit because I was with Albani at kids’ training so might as well do something while she was running).  My legs would not get going and 4 miles at 8:24 pace was long enough!  However, I did finish faster and feeling looser than when I started, so it did something.  I was so hungry after my second run, and so tired as I was putting Albani to bed!

We should all always run with this joy!

Thursday – Lap swim 45 minutes.  I woke up tired and glad that I was only doing an easy swim!  Then I started the swim and was ready to stop after about 5 minutes, but as I continued I loosened up and felt better.  I swim super slow anyway!

Friday – 12 miles total:  2.6 warm-up (7:37), 6.2 tempo (6:24), 3.2 cool-down (7:45), mostly with Missy.  This run was loosely planned on Wednesday, but we didn’t know quite what we were doing until Thursday evening, or exactly what we were doing until we had already started (oops!)!  We had discussed doing a workout similar to our tempo last week, and right after we hit start on our watches I asked, “Wait, what exactly are we running?” – hah!

Our initial plan was 5 miles tempo (around 6:30 pace), 1 mile recovery, 1 mile throw down, but around 3 miles in I asked her if she wanted to just do 6 miles tempo straight, as my legs were tired and I worried that if I slowed down after 5 miles for a recovery jog I would not be able to speed back up for 1 more, but that I could continue on the current pace for 6 miles.  She agreed to that.  Thank you, Missy, for your flexibility!!  Then, when we were nearing mile 5 I was doing the math in my head and told her that I was going to go to 10K because if I finished strong I would have a sub-40:00 10K.

My tempo splits were: 6:30, 6:27, 6:22, 6:30, 6:26, 6:17 (and 5:40 for the final 0.21) for a 39:45 10K (6:24 average)!  I felt really good about doing that on tired legs in a humid 70 degrees (let me tell you how much I smelled afterward!).  My math was also poor because I thought I needed to run the last mile in about 6:15 to put me just barely under 40:00 (I was thinking 39:59!), but if I have learned nothing else recently it’s that 5 miles into a tempo run or towards the end of a double-digit long run, my calculations start sucking!  So I did not have to pound that last 0.2 like I did, but eh.  I told Missy that this was a better tempo run than last week, as the weather today was sticky warm, whereas for our last tempo run it was 45 degrees!  Time to acclimate for summer!

Tempo splits

Saturday – 8.1 recovery miles (7:50), 35 minutes of strength training (basic moves such as single leg squats, lunges, dead lifts, calf raises, rows, planks, etc.), then sat in a van for 8+ hours en route to Chicago.  Oy!

Sunday – 9 base pace miles (7:27 average), with 6 strides in mile 8, mostly on the Lakeshore Trail in Chicago. This was supposed to be 8 miles, but I got a little lost at the end trying to get back to my hotel! This was a fun run because there were so many runners, cyclists, and walkers out (no solidarity on runs here - which I would loathe if I lived here but is fun for a few days), and it was so flat. I love exploring on my runs when I am traveling!

Lakeshore Trail