Atypically typical, with a 10K PR!

Week of March 27 - April 2, 2017

Mileage: 46.5, with a track workout, two doubles (if I can even count Friday's), a set of strides, a PR 10,000 m race, and a bootcamp.  The absence of a long run was what I disliked about this atypical week, and also made for lower mileage, but I guess that is what happens when I schedule two races that I want to run well in just a week apart.  Also atypical was racing at 9:30 p.m....beforehand I kept wondering why it couldn't be at 8:00 a.m. like "normal".

Monday - Bootcamp (45 minutes) with an elliptical warm-up (40 minutes)...Monday business as usual.

Tuesday - 10.9 total; morning track workout of 2 warm-up, 8 x 400 with 200 recoveries, 2.2 cool-down, and evening shake out of 3.8 (7:07).  400 repeats are one of the most intimidating workouts to me; give me a 10 mile tempo run over them any day!  However, after having run 20 x 400 last month (and on 3 occasions before that), I reminded myself that 8 repeats would feel really short -- the scary part was that my goal splits for this workout were faster at 1:21-1:23.  Zach ran these with me (and was nice enough to let me have the inside of lane 1, like Daniel last week), and beforehand he was telling me that this was 5:24-5:32 pace and I responded, "Let's not talk about that!!", hahaha!  Missy ran a warm up and cool down with us, and an awesome 800 workout while we were running the 400s, plus there was another group out of the track, so it was quite the pre-dawn party out there -- also got some more practice passing on the track.

My splits ended up being: 1:21.4, 1:22.1, 1:22.2, 1:21.3, 1:21.9, 1:22.3, 1:22.6, 1:21.4, and I was pleased with that!  Definitely my fastest 400 repeats as an adult, very consistent (all within 0.9!), and in my goal range.  The 200 recoveries felt quite short -- after all they are only about a 1:00 -- and my legs were burning on rep 8, but it was doable.  Whew!  Now I don't expect any more track workouts for awhile.  I felt peppy on my evening run; I think the combination of running only 7 miles in the morning, beautiful weather, and having had two meals between runs (instead of just breakfast like when I run on my lunch break before eating) was a winning combo.  I ran this one after work, at 6:30 p.m. instead of at lunch because I knew I'd be racing in the late evening on Friday and hadn't done any running after 1:00 p.m. for months!

Wednesday - "Recovery" 7.1 (7:03) with Missy, Zach, and Ben (new to the group!).  Missy's dog Rolo is not the greatest easy run partner, as he pulled us through the middle 4 miles in 6:4X-6:5X.  Our group continues to grow, as we had the four of us, plus three others ran the same route around 8:00 pace.  I love it!

Thursday - Pre-race 3 miles shake out with 4 strides (7:20).

Friday - 13.1 total, with 2.1 morning shake out (7:49); then in the evening 2.8 warm-up (7:30ish), 10,000 m race in 37:09, and 2 cool-down (7:40ish).  This was my first ever 10K on the track (that's 25 laps!), my first time racing at 9:30 p.m. since high school or possibly ever (can't quite remember how late those meets were!), and my first time racing primarily against gals half my age at the collegiate Wash U Invite Distance Carnival -- all for the sake of 10K PR chasing!  I netted a big 10K PR out of the deal, improving my old official PR of 38:44 (which I kept beating in half marathons), and overall I was very pleased with this race.  My 1600 m splits were:  5:59, 5:54, 5:56, 5:57, 5:57, 5:57, and a 1:26 final lap -- making my two 5Ks nearly identical!  If everything went perfectly, I'd hoped to hit a 36:59, but I surprisingly wasn't at all disappointed that I didn't -- I think because I felt like I ran a smart race at my max and I just don't know where 10 more seconds could have come from that day -- but I was close enough that I believe I can get there...maybe if I race at 8:00 a.m. like "normal", or on a flat point-to-point or out and back road course.  I was 8th in a field of 41, and out-sprinted two girls at the end (our times were 37:09.4, 37:09.6, 37:09.8!) -- results are here.  Full race report coming!

My favorite race photo, as I leapfrogged with these girls during the final mile-ish & they tried to come around me at the end & I said nope!  The second is from Pittsburg State, where I went to college!  More pics coming too.

Saturday - 5 tired miles (8:17) in St. Louis.  After finishing my cool-down at 10:45 p.m. on Friday and sleeping maybe 2 hours total, my legs were not having any of it on a 7:30 a.m. run on Saturday, but it was my only opportunity to run that day before a family day in St. Louis.  I knew the late race would wreck my sleep, and even sleeping pills were of no help -- I definitely wouldn't want to race often at 9:30 p.m.!  Only having some cantaloupe, a handful of pistachios, and a small protein shake that did not agree with me (thanks a lot, vegan protein powder sample!) after my race didn't do me any favors either.

Family fun in St. Louis - more pics coming here too!

Sunday - 7.3 base miles (7:39).  I wasn't quick about getting out for this run, due to how much I dragged on Saturday's run, which was followed by a day of walking over 9 miles at the Gateway Arch and St. Louis Zoo, but I felt alright.  I started at 8:00 and finished at 7:20, which is always a sign that a recovery run served its purpose.

"Purple beast" raced on Sunday!

This is going to be my last training week post, for a month at least.  I'm going to try monthly re-caps instead, to hit the highlights (weekly mileage totals, workouts, etc.) without being mundane!  I figure I'll also do posts about any particularly noteworthy workouts, and race recaps of course...April will have several race reports (4-5 counting the forthcoming 10,000 m one - oy!)!  I ended March with 202.8 total miles; the beginning of the month was pretty light since I was in marathon-recovery mode, so I was pleasantly surprised I was over 200.

Garmin March data