Because (s)he's racing and pacing and plotting the course

That Cake song is a classic in my book! And I did a little pacing and racing this week, or at least pretended to!

Week in review for July 18-24:

Mileage: 53.3 with one double, one split tempo, one 5K, one long run, one strength bootcamp, and a set of strides for good measure.

Jamie & I before the Bentley 5K ("I'm not going to touch you for the picture" - it was very hot!)

Monday - Cross-training Monday kicked off with 30 minutes of elliptical to warm up and 45 minutes of bootcamp.  We don't run much in bootcamp, which is good because I go on non-running days, but today we did a ladder type thing that included jumping jacks, squats, push-ups, and mountain climbers, with short sprints between sets.  Got my heart pumpin'!

Tuesday - 11.5 base pace miles total with 8 in the morning (7:29) and 3.5 at lunch (7:16).  I always think it's neat to see how my pace fluctuates with slight elevation changes as I maintain an equal effort throughout (see below).  I also love Strava for being able to look at my run data this way! Side note: if you're on Strava, add me!

I couldn't remember if my second run was supposed to be 3 or 4 miles, so I ran 3.5 (it was 3).  After last week my coach told me to slow down my second short runs, and I have never before been one to run easy runs too fast, so I don't know what's happening on these second runs because I sure felt like I was going slower than I was on this one!  First world runner problems. Next week I promise it will be slower than 7:30.

Elevation fluctuations

Wednesday - 10 miles with 2 warm-up, 3-2-1 mile tempos with 0.5 recoveries, 1 cool-down.  My target pace on this was 6:15 and it went very well with splits of 18:41, 12:26, and 6:09.  I liked this workout a lot, because although it was 6 miles of work, the recoveries split it up nicely and also with each repeat being shorter it seemed very do-able to maintain pace.  Full description and splits here.  This was a confidence-boosting workout, and I wish I had it last week so it could actually have helped my 5K race instead of being so close that it could only hurt it.

Thursday - 6.1 miles easy (7:49) with 6 strides in last mile.  My first mile especially was quite a slog, as I was feeling Wednesday's workout!  I felt better as the run went on, as usual, but I was okay with only having 6 miles.

Friday - A day off...which was 10 minutes on the elliptical to maintain the workout streak.  I set my alarm for 7:00 a.m. but woke up at 5:32 a.m. - boo!

Saturday -7.5 miles total - 2.5 warm-up (7:30ish), 5K race (6:12) at the Bentley Fund 5K, 1.8 cool-down (8:20ish).  Jamie talked me into running this one, and I acquiesced because I hoped to hold onto her in the race as long as I could to get a good time, and because the race had prize money.  Since my recent workouts have been tempos and not speed work, I thought that 6:10 was a good 5K pace goal for me - especially considering that this race took place during an extreme heat advisory.  Jamie talked me into trying 6:05 pace, and said the race would be "interesting".  Refer to my response to her and to my actual race splits below!

I knew what I could be in for!

2 miles of racing + 1 mile of giving up + 0.2 redemption sprint

Jamie and I warmed up together and started the race together.  My plan (which she knew about) was to let her set the pace and to not look at my watch.  I seem to do better in 5Ks when I run this way - I think because they are fast and intimidating from the gate. We had another lady, Amy, in the mix with us, and we all three clipped off those first two miles right around 6:05 pace.  Around 1.8 or 1.9, Amy made a move and Jamie and I both tried to cover her, but neither quite could.  At that point we also turned up a long incline (this entire course except for the final 0.3 seemed like incline!).  Going up the incline, Amy pulled out and Jamie pulled away from me.  At the mile 2 mark the gap from Jamie to me was small (2-3 seconds), but it was enough that I'd lost contact.  I wanted Jamie to go with Amy, and I also wanted my legs to go with both of them but they sure wouldn't!

The gap grew a little more and a little more, and I kind of just gave up.  I knew I was going to finish third female at that point, and I was dying.  I didn't look at my watch at all but kind of wish I had because maybe that would have got me going at least a little better than I was during mile 3.  In retrospect I am mad at myself over it, but at the time I don't know if there was much more I could do anyway. I ended up finishing in 19:34.  My Garmin had the course at 3.18, and it's impossible to know if it was a little long or if I didn't run the tangents (there were a lot of turns), or Garmin error was a bit more than usual - or some combination of all of the above.  Even if it was a tad long, there is still no question that I crashed and burned in the last mile!

I think/hope I could have held onto 6:05 pace if it had been 60 degrees and a flat course (and perhaps without the Wednesday workout) - so I will try again.  The 5K knocks me down every time, but darn it, I am going keeping trying to run another one in the 18's before I get too old to try!  My husband tells me that I need to try this not during a 53 mile training week (novel idea, but not sure I can ever justify resting more than 1 day for a 5K).

Finish

Sunday - 18 mile long run (7:34).  I wasn't the most motivated to start this run; it was 5:30 a.m., we were still in that extreme heat advisory, I ate a lot on Saturday night, and I was still kind of mad at running and wondering if I should even be marathon training (over my poor final mile on Saturday -- I finally told myself that not even Galen Rupp could run his best 5K off of marathon training, as shown at the Olympic Trials!).  Due to logistics, I also had to run this one solo, but Jon decided to bike part of it with me since Albani was with my parents.  It ended up being about 9 miles alone followed by about 9 miles with him on the bike.

My long run base pace range from my coach is 7:30-7:45 so I decided that I needed the upper range on this run and started closer to 7:45.  My miles stayed pretty close to 7:40 for 14 miles, and I was feeling good at that point so dropped the final 4 to 7:27, 7:17, 7:16, and 6:49, which improved my overall pace average.  I think I was fearful of crapping out at the end of this run, so being able to finish strong and feeling good sure made me thankful.  The miles went pretty fast and I can't believe that I am already up to 18 miles and 11 weeks out from my marathon!

Long run part 1

Long run part 2