Key Week: Envigorated, Not Exhausted

Week in review for September 5-11, 2016

Mileage:  61.2, with 7 days of running (the only week that will happen, 2 days were super short though), 1 race, 1 track workout, 1 double, 1 tempo+ workout in a long run, and 1.25 strength workouts.  This was my highest week of volume and intensity of this training cycle - meaning that most of the hay is in the barn for Prairie Fire at this point!  I have some more key runs (e.g., a 24 miler, a Yasso 800 workout, a 15K race), but nothing this big all in one week.

Monday - 10.3 miles total with the Run for a Child's Hunger 10K and a new 10K PR of 38:43.  This is my third mention of this race (also here and here), so I will stop boring everyone with it, but I was very pumped about it!

Tuesday - 3.2 mile shake out (7:34) and 40 minutes of strength training in my driveway since I didn't do a Monday bootcamp (in my driveway so I didn't wake up my family with plyos and such in the house).  I felt surprisingly fresh on the run, but of course it was also super short.  I'm at the heaviest point in my training, and my coach told me to really focus on recovery, so I have been vigilant about stretching, foam rolling, and getting nutrition quickly after workouts.  I've also been wearing compression socks quite a bit, particularly when sleeping and on recent car rides, so I think it is all helping.  Having many weeks of mileage on my legs is also helping!

Back to work & school Tuesday!

Wednesday - 10.5 miles total; 2.5 warm-up with strides (7:24), 6 miles of track work/recoveries, and 2 miles of slogging a cool-down (8:23).  Also a little cross-training during my warm-up and cool-down with moving the football-related equipment out of lane 1 on the track, then putting it back where I found it (don't they know what a track is really for?!).  I was a little intimidated by this workout since it was only my second time on the track in 2016, it seemed really fast, and it came 2 days after a race.  When Jon wished me luck on it on Tuesday evening I told him I didn't even care if I hit my splits because I'd performed when it mattered in my race, so this was secondary, but of course I wanted to do my best.

My workout was:
1600 m. - goal 6:00, actual 5:55.9 (800 m recovery)
1200 m. - goal 4:27, actual 4:25 (800 m recovery)
1000 m. - goal 3:41, actual 3:40 (800 m recovery)
800 m - goal 2:55, actual 2:55 (400 m recovery)
600 m - goal 2:11, actual 2:10 (400 m recovery)
400 m - goal 1:25, actual 1:25 (400 m recovery)
200 m - goal 37, actual 39.9 (recovery until I hit 6 miles and cleared my watch to start my cool-down)

I was very excited that I hit or beat my goal times (which were challenging and faster than I would have given myself) on everything but the 200 m - and there really was never any hope for that one anyhow, haha!  The best part is that the mile felt brisk but not SUPER hard...like I could run a 5K at that pace on the track.  The track is SO flat - hah!  The lesson learned for the day was that I should not have done lunges and squats on Tuesday!  I was a little sore when I started this workout and really felt them towards the end as I got faster on fatigued legs, and then my cool-down was a bit of a death march.  I'd run a couple of 1000s earlier this season on the track in 3:44 and 3:45 (when my goal was 3:40), and at the time my coach said we would try one again sometime to gauge my improvement, so I was really happy to hit 3:40 this time!  Amazing how much speed comes with mileage, because I haven't been running any track work.  Now that race day is getting close, I'm in my final phase of training and sharpening my leg turnover.

Thursday - 10.3 base miles with 7.2 a.m. (8:06) and 3.1 p.m. (7:31).  I ran with Missy in the morning and we were both ready for a slow run, having done a hot long run (her) and track work (me) the day prior.  I also did 10 minutes of core work (mostly plank variations) in my driveway after finishing this run, because we finished early, and I was also thinking I shouldn't go to bootcamp on Friday since my quads were a bit sore from my race + lunge matrixes + track workout situation (definitely made a mistake on the decision to do lunges on Tuesday!). 

Right before my second run I ran a half mile with Albani, and I thought it would help me warm up, but it actually made it harder to get moving (she was running about 10:30 pace which was also very uncomfortable to me). I didn't count that half mile in my mileage, but if I somehow came up short for the week I figured I could bring it back, hah!

Friday - 3.2 miles (7:52). My schedule said this was supposed to be "very relaxed", which I interpreted to mean slower than usual. I ate too much too late on Thursday night, which sometimes second runs after long days at work cause to happen, so it was easy to go short and slower!  And I skipped bootcamp for the sake of Saturdays' run.

Saturday - 17 miles with 3.6 warm-up (8:17), 10 tempo (6:25), 1 recovery (7:35), 1 throw down (5:53), 2 cool-down (8:17).  Details here.  This was an important workout so I was happy to have it in the books!
 

Saturday we also had a birthday party for Albani! Her actual birthday is September 18, but we will be out of town next weekend so she got to start celebrating a little early. The swim party was a hit!

Getting ready to blow out the candles

Part of the group before the second swim; that's her "boyfriend" on the left

She got a few signs through the building

Sunday - 6.5 base pace (7:27).  It was gorgeous for this run - 49 degrees, sunny, and no wind!  So I kind of wished I'd run Saturday's workout on Sunday (it went back and forth between the two days, but ended up on Saturday in order to give myself another day of recovery before my 24 miler coming on Wednesday).  I ran the middle 4 or so with Casey.  I started off slower than my usual base pace (8:12 first mile), but once I started rolling I felt better than expected, plus running with Casey always makes me run faster on easy days.  It was a wonderful way to finish off a blessed week!

I'm glad to have this hard week down, and even happier that I've come away from it feeling good.  Props to my coach, because had I tried to do this on my own accord and without his build-up, I'd probably be injured by now instead of envigorated!