We can have our cake and eat it too!

Week of July 10-16, 2016

Mileage: 56 with 1 tempo run, 1 double, 1 set of strides, 1 fast finish long run, 1 recovery run that wasn't, and 2 strength workouts



Having chocolate cake & eating it too!

Monday - Cross-training Monday business as usual, with a 30 minute elliptical warm up and 60 minute bootcamp. Usually I have to leave bootcamp at 45 minutes to get to work on time, but today I was going straight to a 8:30 meeting so got to do the whole class! So many lunges!

Tuesday - 8.4 base pace (7:16 average).  This one was a little faster than base pace but it felt good.  I ran with Casey and she seems to make me go faster on easy runs!

Wednesday - 10.1 total:  2 warm-up (7:45ish), 6 tempo (6:24), 2.1 cool-down (8:17).  I couldn't coerce talk anyone into running this with me, so it was a little scary running this long of a sustained hard effort alone.  I struggled a bit with my solo 4 mile tempo last week (averaging 6:17 when my goal was 6:15), and my goal pace range on this one was 6:15-6:25, but I knew 6:15 for 6 miles was not going to happen.  Whenever my coach gives me a pace range, I try to hit the lower end of it, but I think he was overly ambitious with the lower end of this one considering it's summer.  My goal was to start with a 6:30 mile, follow it with 4 miles around 6:25, and end with a 6:15.  My splits were:  6:28, 6:23, 6:21, 6:26, 6:24, 6:19.  Slowing down a little from last week's 4 mile pace definitely helped me cover the additional distance, but this was a challenging workout for sure.  I seem to naturally go to about 6:30 pace on tempos right now, so I really had to focus to keep this a little faster.  My legs were shot by the end of it, and in the final mile I promised myself I didn't have to run the cool-down if I didn't have it left!  But after I walked for a couple of minutes I finished the run as written with a cool-down, even though I felt like I was barely moving.

Warm-up plus tempo (cool-down was separate
due to nearly not running it)

Thursday - 12.3 miles total; 8.2 mile recovery run a.m. (8:08) with 6 strides in the last mile, and 4 miles p.m. (7:13), followed by a short strength workout.  In the morning I was scheduled to run with both Missy and Casey (an actual group run!), and woke up before my alarm to a massive thunderstorm.  After a flurry of super early morning texts, Casey decided to wait to run until later, and Missy and I decided to chance the weather.  I told both of them that I was running at least 4 miles NO MATTER WHAT that morning since I had two runs, but I hoped to get the 8 miles in as planned since it's far easier for me to run 4 miles after work than 8 miles.  Anyhow, Missy and I got it in and got rained on some but nothing bad...in fact, it felt really good and was nice and cool compared to most of my recent runs, at 68 degrees.  With the easy pace I felt like I didn't do much of a workout, which was a nice change from my hammered legs after Wednesday's workout.  In the evening I ran at the Y so Albani could go to inflatables during my run, and I think I've done so many speed workouts on that half mile loop (it's the BEST for mile repeats with half mile recoveries!) that it's hard to go slow on it, as my base pace runs on it always end up being a little faster than they are supposed to be.  Jon ran an easy 3 miler while I was running too, so the loop is also nice since we were running different paces but still running together in a sense. After my run I did half a strength workout. 

Friday - 4.1 miles base pace (7:34) with Casey, plus the other half of my strength workout. The weather was gorgeous for July - of course the nicest morning is the one with my shortest run. If I hadn't been scheduled to run with Kim on Saturday morning I probably would have done my long run a day early since it was in the 60s and I was off work!

When I start running at 6:00 instead of 5:00, I have time to take a picture

before leaving the house!

Saturday - 14 miles (7:19) with fast finish, with Kim in Sedgwick County Park in Wichita. I was supposed to do 10 miles base pace (7:30-7:45) then drop 5-10 seconds each mile on the final 4 miles. The final 4 were 7:05, 7:26, 6:54, 6:28 - so they didn't look as systematic as the 7:20, 7:10, 7:00, 6:50 I planned, and I have no explanation for what they ended up being except that Kim and I were talking and I wasn't watching my watch at all closely enough. It was nice to finish in the 6's for the final 2 though - and the final mile was brisk but not kill myself hard, so that was confidence boosting! 

Fast finish 14

The rest of the day Saturday was spent on the lake!

Seems like cross-training to me!

My sweets tubing

Sunday - 7.1 miles "recovery", again with Kim, on the K-96 trail in Wichita.  This was supposed to be a base pace recovery run, but it ended up being faster (7:05 average - a 7:45 first mile followed by 6 miles between 6:50-7:11).  Kim likes to push, and she is also a little faster than me, so this is what happened!  I felt really good though - which was surprising considering Saturday's run plus life activities (we left for the lake around 9:15 a.m. and returned around 5:30 p.m., then I went to a friend's BBQ and didn't go to bed until after 10:00 p.m., which is late for me). I may crash tomorrow!  I think it was good for me to get some runs in in Wichita, as the Prairie Fire Marathon is there and is pancake flat, whereas my usual flattest routes at home are still somewhat hilly because it's the Ozarks!

I've run MANY solo miles over the years, and in the past year I have been blessed to connect with not one but FOUR women to train with (training with women is so much better than training with men for me - sorry guys! - but it hasn't been easy to find women at my pace)!  This week alone I got to run with three of them.  Running in itself is a blessing, but being able to train and socialize with Missy, Casey, Kim, and Jamie has been having my cake and eating it too!