Running Down the Dream: Jubilant June

June 2023 in review!

Total mileage for the month: 299.5

May 29-June 4: 62.6
June 5-11: 72.4
June 12-18: 73.1
June 19-25: 76.0
June 26-July 2: 66.4

I'm officially a 2023-2024 rabbitELITE

Workouts:

June 2: 8 laps of straights and curves on the track to reintroduce some faster running. This workout is simply run the straights hard and the curves easy. I didn't take any splits, and I felt better than I anticipated considering that my first strides back a couple of days before felt terrible!
June 5: Hill reps of 2 x 1:00, 2 x 0:45, 6 x 0:30. My paces were 6:10, 6:10, 5:58, 5:55, 5:50, 5:57, 5:50, 5:48, 5:46, which I was pretty happy with because it was my first workout back and I'm bad at hills even when I'm in good shape! Power is not my forte. The volume on this was very low, but it was really hard and I ended up getting sore from it.
June 9: 6 x 800 m with 200 m recoveries. I started this workout with my running buddies fully expecting to not run the whole thing and with an option to switch to 400s with long recoveries after a couple of reps, but I ended up doing it all because I never fell off pace! My times were nothing record-setting, but very consistent with five of them coming in at 3:03. I didn't really know what to expect but was happy with this after no workouts for 8 weeks (with pretty much no running for 4 of those weeks).
June 13: 6 x 1:30 hill reps. This felt better than the previous week's hills! My paces were 6:25, 6:26, 6:21, 6:27, 6:23, 6:20 and I was happy to run even and finish strong. I think when I'm in really great shape I run about 6:00 on this hill for 1:30 or 0.25 reps, so this wasn't terrible.
June 16: 12 x 400 m with 200 m jogs (400 m jog after #4 and 8) in 1:28, 1:30, 1:29, 1:30, 1:28, 1:29, 1:29, 1:30, 1:28, 1:30, 1:30, 1:26. Based on the previous week I thought I'd aim for 1:30 or a smidge under, and this was probably just right for my current state. The last one was a push in a good way.
June 20: 2 mile threshold on the road, jog into the track, 2 x 800 m on the track at 5k with 400 m jog (threshold miles 6:15, 6:08; 800s both 3:03). I ran the threshold too quick for my current state, which meant the 5k pace work was not much faster, but we will call this is a good 5k-10k pace workout. I only did the threshold because most of my running buddies were doing a mile time trial and then the 800s, but I didn't want to do a mile time trial for multiple reasons! So I did the threshold then a short jog while they did the time trial plus full recovery, then we ran the 800s together.
June 23: 6 x 1000 m with the goal of matching paces from the 6 x 800 m workout on June 9, with the obvious addition of 200 m more each rep. This was successful and I averaged exactly my goal time of 3:50, with splits of 3:50, 3:50, 3:50, 3:50, 3:53, 3:47. Rep 5 got a little rough but I rallied to finish #6 strong to keep my average! I kept getting out a little too slow, coming through the 600 in 2:20, and thinking "gah, now a 1:30 lap", so these were all run with a negative split but it seemed to work for me.
June 27: Track ladder of 1600 m, 1200 m, 1000 m, 800 m, 600 m, 400 m, 200 m with 400 m jog recoveries in the first half and 200 m jogs for the second. The goal was to start at 5k pace then speed up every rep. I have run this workout a few times before and have always had some blip in the execution, usually getting "stuck" at the same pace for 2-3 reps instead of progressing, and also running too hard on the first 2-3 reps then sucking it up on the rest (one time I ran the 1600 m in 5:58 and the 400 at 1:33 - facepalm). This time I executed perfectly with splits of 6:13, 4:40, 3:51, 3:02, 2:13, 1:23, 0:40. Though I have probably averaged faster, I have never paced it so well, and I was really proud of that, especially because it's much harder for me to negative split anything in the summer.
June 30: 8 x 600 m with 200 m recovery jogs for the first half and 100 m walk + 100 m jog for the second half. I don't think I'd have been able to hit my splits without the walks, so it felt a little like cheating but I decided the dew point of death evened it out. My goal was 2:15-2:17 and I averaged exactly 2:15 via 2:15, 2:15, 2:15, 2:17, 2:15, 2:15, 2:14, 2:14.
Strides: June 5, 8, 12, 15, 19, 22, 26, 29.
Doubles: June 6, 12, 13, 19, 27.
Favorite workout: June 27 because it was my first time ever to execute that one well.

#jubliantjune track work

#fastfriday

Long Runs:

June 3: 13.1 miles (7:54), which I was pretty happy with considering. I felt strong and good for these miles on farm roads with friends.
June 10: 14.2 miles (8:30) which felt like about the longest 14 ever! I ran the Recycle Run, a fun training run in Springfield where you get free swag that is leftover from past races. I realized that I always feel like trash at the Recycle Run for some reason; this one was probably due to trying to do a Friday workout followed by a Saturday long run when I wasn't ready for that, last year it was due to the heat, and longer ago I don't recall why but I distinctly remember it feeling terrible multiple times. I'm sure I'll go back next year, hah!
June 17: 15 miles (8:18) that was not great but was a step up from June 10. We ran the Bass Pro half course with one wrong turn, then Casey, Mandy, and I added on a bit. Our group had 12 people start this run, everyone doing between 11-15 miles.
June 24: 16 miles (8:35) that felt good but was slower than I'd have liked. It was extremely humid and pretty warm for this one, and the group started out quite slow but I had no complaints because I'd suffered a lot on my previous two long runs.
Favorite long run: June 3 was really the only one I felt great on - probably because I did workouts the day before all of the others. Right now workouts are relatively short and on Tuesday and Friday, with easy medium long and long runs on Wednesday and Saturday. When I get into more marathon-specific work, workouts will shift to being during the Wednesday and Saturday medium long and long runs.

Mandy and I twinned without planning it

#jubilantjune

Running Highlights:

I'm a rabbitELITE for year 3! I'm very honored to be on the team again, and thankful I got on again when I don't think think I deserved it based on my performances in the past year. I will do my best to represent well this year!
Running group is doing Summer of Speed, which has been fun. I like longer workouts and I'm usually better at them, but shorter stuff has been helpful for me as I return from 4 weeks of very little running from mid-April to mid-May, and track workouts with friends are fun! Most of my pacing buddies are over 15 years younger than me, and I am proud I can hang with them on these workouts.
I found myself pictured on this Bass Pro Marathon blog post, and on this Bass Pro Facebook event page.
I listed to this podcast, which mentioned that you can't heat adapt and gain fitness at the same time...not the most encouraging message when I was trying to do both.
Running group celebrated Casey's birthday and Mandy's birthday, multiple times each!
Running group continues to grow, and we had several new people join for runs this month.

Saturday night - Casey's birthday

Sunday morning - Casey's birthday

Also Sunday morning

Recycle Run + Mandy's first celebration

Life Highlights:

I spent a Saturday in my college town with college friends.
I feel like I did a million things on the weekends, but most were related to celebrating Casey's and Mandy's birthdays, haha!

Mall Deli

Roots didn't exist when we were in college, but
we walked all around downtown, which we were
very familiar with (though not in daylight, hah!)

Books:

We Share the Sun: The Incredible Journey of Kenya's Legendary Running Coach Patrick Sang and the Fastest Runners on Earth by Sarah Gearhart
Maybe Someday by Colleen Hoover
Chrysalis by Anna Metcalfe
Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus
Ricochet by Sandra Brown
Maybe Now by Colleen Hoover
Iona Iverson's Rules for Commuting by Clare Pooley

Theme for the month: