Back at it!

Week of October 17-23, 2016

Mileage: 51.5, with a set of strides, a fartlek workout, a double, a 5K race for fun, a fast finish long run, two bootcamps, and some extra core work

Monday - Cross-training MonYay with 35 minute elliptical warm-up and 45 minute strength bootcamp.  Despite spending Sunday at Silver Dollar City, I felt good on this workout!  I also did my standard short bonus 5 minute plank workout on Monday evening.

My favorite Chiefs fans at Silver Dollar City on 10/16/16

Tuesday - 6 miles base pace with 6 strides in the last mile (7:17).  I was thankful to get another day of sports bra running weather (68 degrees!), and my legs were ready to go!  Only 6 miles??!  My coach told me that he wants me rested and feeling ready to go run instead of tired in these next 3 weeks, and I understand this and am going to follow his training plan.  In fact, I am grateful for someone reigning me in and keeping me healthy, as I historically have proven I suck at that.  But, I also felt like I should be doing a little more mileage this week, before I taper back again!  However, it's definitely preferable to go into Bass Pro on November 6 a little too rested as opposed to worn down or even worse injured.  I'd rather lose a little fitness and stay healthy than the alternative, and I also keep reminding myself that this second marathon off of this training cycle is just bonus!  Plus I want to start my training cycle for my next big goal at the Phoenix marathon in a good place.

Wednesday - 9 miles base pace (7:31).  I ran with a new training partner, Ashley, for the first time on this run, as there is now a Springfield area "competitive women's running group" group text.  Of course they started this group right after my goal marathon!  I'm super stoked that I am getting connected with enough training partners that I should have someone to run with for more of my runs than not.  It's also exciting to have women to train with!  After this run I went to 40 minutes of bootcamp, doing my second bootcamp on Wednesday instead of Friday this week (usually this doesn't happen because I usually have workouts on Wednesdays, but worked out perfectly this week so I didn't go on Friday before the Saturday 5K).

Thursday - 8.1 miles total (6:44 for all; hard portions at 5:34-5:51), with my first workout post-marathon!  The workout was 2 miles warm-up, 4 miles of 3' on/3' off fartlek (ended up being a bit over 4 miles because I wanted to finish the fifth hard 3 minutes instead of stopping in the middle of it), 2 miles cool-down.  I was a little nervous going into this one because I knew it would tell me a lot about where I was with my marathon recovery.  I was feeling good heading into it, but feeling good running base pace vs. a hard pace are different things!

It was a short workout that I knew was intended to start getting some leg turnover back without pounding my legs.  It ended up being one of those days where I felt ah-mazing and this went almost so well that I questioned whether or not my Garmin was correct.  My hards were all sub-6:00 (the final one at 5:34), my recoveries between hards were low 7s, and my warm-up at 7:22 and cool-down at 7:11.  What was really cool is that when I finished the workout and saved it on my watch, I saw that my average for all 8 miles was 6:44, which I didn't expect.  I remember the time not too long ago when I was trying to run 8 mile tempos at 6:45ish and that was a major victory, so having that average pace with half of the distance being warm-up and cool-down, and the other half being a fartlek with equal duration on/offs was really cool to see...or maybe my Garmin was just wrong, hahahaha!

What what?

Friday - Threasy - 3.3 miles (7:23) and 15 minutes of core work.  It was 38 degrees for this one (only down 30 degrees from Tuesday morning!), which is great running weather but also feels FAR colder in October than in January (also colder in the dark than after sunrise)!

Saturday - 9.1 miles total, with a 3 mile shake out in the morning (7:32), and the Ozark Rotary Trick or Trot 5K (18:46/6:03 pace) with 2.3 warm-up (7:15) and 0.7 cool-down (7:43) in the evening.  Apparently the magic combination for me to run in the 18s in a 5K was to plan to run it at 10K effort in a teeny tiny 5:00 p.m. race that I won a free entry to!  I was pretty stoked about this time, as I haven't been able to put a solid 5K together for a very long time, and I finished this one with some left in the tank.  Albani won the female costume contest, and a trophy she adored!  Read more about it with pictures here.

Sunday - 16 miles with 12 relaxed then 4 fast finish (7:15 pace for all 16; final 4 in 6:58, 7:02, 6:57, 6:30).  I wasn't quite sure how I would feel on this run, since I started it exactly 12.5 hours after my Saturday 5K started.  It went very well, though, and I ran the first 9 miles with another new training partner from the competitive women's group, Amy.  She had done her long run on Thursday so didn't go the whole way with me, but after dropping her off it felt short only having 7 more miles, 4 of which were fast finish.  I love fast finishing long runs, and the fast finish miles always make the long run seem shorter, because I think about how I run to 12 (or whatever mile) and then more of a workout starts - so the run is broken up into two sections.  I was supposed to drop the pace by 10 seconds/mile from where I'd been running (so about 7:15, 7:05, 6:55, 6:45), so I exceeded my goal a little but didn't do the pretty progression since I sped up too much on the first of the 4 miles.

While the run went great, the rest of the day on Sunday I could feel the evening race + lack of sleep due to being amped up from the race + early morning long run combination, which was kind of unfortunate because it was a beautiful day outside.  After going to church and getting groceries, we spent it at home watching football (Jon), reading and messing around online (me), and playing Minecraft and Star Wars on the X-Box (Albani).  All 3 of us napped some as well!  It felt good to rest and rejuvenate, although I had mom-guilt over letting Albani have so much screen time (she had no complaints).

Now I marathon taper...again!