Mileage: 33, all easy with the exception of a few miles at the end of my training pace half and 4 x strides, and also one bootcamp
Monday - I planned to take a day off (meaning 10 minutes on the elliptical due to that darn streak), but I could not sleep! This is not unusual for me post-marathon, and the night of the Dallas marathon I did not sleep AT ALL, so the 4 hours I got this time were better than that. I credit getting some sleep to taking Melatonin at double the dose I would usually take, proactively. Anyway, I was wide awake at 4:00 a.m. (after not being able to go to sleep until around midnight), so by 5:00 a.m. I acquiesced and began doing laundry and such. I then did 45 minutes easy on the elliptical and a really thorough stretching and foam rolling routine. My legs were DRAINED, but not sore, and I felt better after this than before it, so I hoped it did some good. I also did a second ice bath on Monday night (the first was on marathon night). I lived in compression socks most of this week as well!
Tuesday - Back at it with 3.2 miles easy (8:22). My coach gave me short distances to run starting on Tuesday, but also said to "just cover the distance," so it was tempting to just walk this one, haha! Although slower than my usual easy pace, each mile was a bit faster as I loosened up, so again I hoped it did some good to get my blood circulating and to help me recover. I usually don't run again this soon after a marathon, but last year after my B race/training race marathon at Bass Pro I remember having 8 miles on my schedule two days after, so I figured I could manage 3 miles two days after an A race. It was one of the few runs I've been happy to stop at 3 miles! I had some soreness set in but not awful. I've really noticed I get far less beat up from marathons and long runs when I am strength training, so that alone is reason to keep that up!
Wednesday - A little more back at it with 4.1 miles easy (7:42). My legs felt a lot better on this run than on Tuesday's, so I'll say that Tuesday's run served it's purpose of speeding along recovery. It was hard to only run 4 miles, but I reminded myself that I need to take some down time to recover from the marathon, and I was thankful to have no nagging pains or anything aside from overall fatigue - and hunger, lots of hunger! It was 69 degrees on this run, and I reveled in what I figured would be one of my last runs of 2016 in just a sports bra and shorts.
Thursday - 8 miles easy (8:08) with Missy. I had 5 miles, but she wanted to do a little more so I said, "I can easily be talked into 8 as long as it's 8:00 pace." It was great to catch up since it had been a couple of weeks since we'd been able to coordinate a run, and it was also a true fall morning at around 45 degrees.
Friday - Cross-training Friday: back to bootcamp! 30 minute elliptical warm-up followed by 55 minutes of bootcamp. I felt normal in this one so hoped I made the right decision to start back to strength training 5 days post-marathon. I want to get in a couple of weeks of strength work before tapering off again so I don't lose anything.
Saturday - 14.4 miles, including running the Kansas City Waddell and Reed half marathon at mostly base pace (1:33:09, which is 7:06 pace per the certified course). You didn't think I could do that (race at base pace) did you? I wasn't quite sure I could either - and admittedly I didn't quite the whole way! But I finished about 10 minutes slower than what I would try to race a half at currently (not that I would have had a 1:23 in my legs yesterday so soon after a full, but I feel like I could've done a 1:25-1:26 if I pounded it).
I love this race and I won a free entry for life into it in a photo contest in 2011. I thought about skipping this year, but decided to run it easy, mainly because I could stack it with a work trip to Kansas City on Friday (also because they had an amazing race hoodie!). I have been the idiot who races a half 6 days after a marathon in the past, and by some miracle had it go well, so I really made a promise to myself that I could NOT do that this time. The main reason I actually (mostly) kept that promise was because I'm 3 weeks from another marathon, and I knew that hammering this could wreck my recovery for that (as is, it's already a trick to try two quality marathons in 4 weeks). Somehow I have this knack for winning free race entries into half marathons that are 6 days after my full marathons (I would never have done this one time, let alone two, if I hadn't had the free entries), and I just can't resist!
I started out really relaxed, and I ended up falling in with a guy who was also just running it as a training run as he was coming back from an injury, and talked to him for miles, which made me go a little faster (he had a 1:12 half PR!). Then towards the end I "allowed" myself to chase the females I could see, so my final 5K was faster (basically 2 miles at marathon pace + 1 mile at almost half pace; it didn't feel that hard though since my other miles were slower). When I came towards the finish, someone told me that I was 4th female, and I thought there was no way that could be correct, but I was in fact 4th overall female. Almost hilarious because I was 5th female at this race last year with a 1:24! 1:29 won it, so I have been regretting (to some extent) that I didn't run it at marathon pace, but there was no way I'd have known, and also that is just me being greedy (plus that 4 minutes would have hampered my recovery more). I probably should have kept the whole thing at 7:30 pace to better help my recovery, but I think I'll be okay with what I did and I felt great during and after. The weather at this race wasn't conducive to fast times - 70 degrees with 20 mph winds - and I was so thankful that I didn't have that weather at Prairie Fire last weekend, because I very well could have! I wish Waddell and Reed and Prairie Fire weren't so close, as I would love to do them both as goal races, but they are too close to even do both halves as A races.
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| The medals were awesome! |
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| My "slight" negative split |
Sunday - 3.3 miles base pace with 4 strides in mile 3 (7:29). I was a little worried my legs would be dead on this run after Saturday's miles and traveling for work, but I felt good so it was hard to follow my schedule and keep it short. I know that less is going to be more in the next 3 weeks, but I miss my 50-60 mile weeks. I'm just trying to look towards my next 26.2 in 3 weeks and my (hopefully) 60-70 mile weeks in my next marathon training build up in 2017!
So many miles.
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