Nothin' to see here

Week in Review for August 15-21, 2016

Mileage: 56, with a meaningful course PR, one double, "the hardest workout ever", and two bootcamp strength workouts

Monday - Cross-training Monday!  Elliptical warm-up + bootcamp for strength (30 min. + 45 min.).  We did a lot of single-leg squats, curtsy lunges, and dead lifts during class, which I appreciated.

This is from last Saturday's ABA gathering, but I wanted to share - Haley's dog Duke
looking at us is the best part! Also I got that dress for $7.99.

Tuesday - 8.2 mostly base pace miles, with 1 mile speed test (7:19 average for the whole run).  Inspired by the Olympics and feeling great through the beginning miles of this run, I decided to try to break 6:00 on a rolling 1 mile straight near my house towards the end of this run (my "Southernview mile" stretch). I've run a lot of repeats on this specific mile straight, but I had never broken 6:00 on it, even when I could run 3-4 x 1 mile at 5:50 on faster courses, and going sub-6:00 on it has been a goal of mine.  I haven't been running speed work lately, as my training is marathon-focused and more strength and endurance-building at this point; but my speed tends to improve as my mileage increases even without any track work, and I am racing a 10K on Labor Day without really knowing where I'm at speed-wise, so I thought this was a good idea for a lot of reasons (my coach will probably say it was a bad idea, since it was not on my schedule; but I also had no hard workouts this week aside from Saturday since that one was SO hard).

I ended up running a 5:57 mile on my Southernview stretch!  I was really happy about this, and I looked back at my training logs to confirm that this was an 8-second PR on this course (I ran a 6:05 on it in May, detailed here, and prior to that had done 6:08).  That's huge for a mile!  I finished feeling like I'd run a hard mile (Captain Obvious!), but not entirely spent and like I could run another repeat or maybe even two at or close to that pace if it was a hard run day.  I had 6 strides scheduled at the end of this scheduled base pace run, but just did 2 since I'd run the hard mile - almost evens out, eh?

See split 7 - my other easy mile splits sure
reflect the elevation changes on the route too

Wednesday - 14.3 miles with 11.1 a.m. (7:18) and 3.2 p.m. (7:16). My runs felt so good!  I don't think I've ever had a double-digit easy run where all of my mile splits were in the 7:20's or under (at the very least my first mile is always slower), and I kind of just kept looking at my splits when my watch beeped in surprise: "How did 7:16 feel that easy?!".  After my morning run I told my husband that I thought I'd had some nice fitness gains since my base pace was dropping, and he informed me, "That's because it's been 65 degrees instead of 80 degress in the mornings this week."  Hah!  Well, that kind of burst my bubble, but I felt great nonetheless (and it was in the high 80s for my second run and it was similarly paced, so maybe that counts for something!).  I don't feel horrible on warmer runs and I think I handle the heat better than most, so I don't realize that it does still affect me.  If 66 degrees feels this good, I can't wait for 46!

I heart cooler temps

Thursday - 8.2 miles base pace (7:24).  I was a little tired getting going on this one, as I typically am on my Thursday morning runs, but then fell into a rhythm and had a nice run.  I explored different routes on my runs this week since I was running alone while Missy was off doing her Ironman!

Friday - Bootcamp with an elliptical warm-up.  It was just a 5-day running week, which felt odd after three 6-day running weeks in a row.  I felt like slacked a bit during this workout because I was preparing for Saturday's intensity, but I got in plenty of lunges and plyos nonetheless!

Saturday -  This.  Definitely the best 20 training miles of my life, with a 6:52 average for the whole run, 6:34 average for the hard 15 miles, and the following averages for the each the tempo portions:  5 miles at 6:45, 4 miles at 6:37, 3 miles at 6:30, 2 miles at 6:18, 1 mile at 6:04.9 (2 miles warm-up, 0.5 mile recoveries between tempos, 1 mile cool-down).  This was a key marathon workout and it went swimmingly!

Sunday -5.3 recovery miles (7:45).  I was tired from yesterday but I definitely felt better as the miles went on.  I didn't have any soreness or pain so that was a win!  It was 55 degrees - the coolest morning this week, and amazing for late August!  I certainly can't complain about any mornings this week at all though; most were around 65, and Saturday was 70 when I started and still 70 when I finished with cloud cover.  Here's hoping we don't have 80 in October!

Today after church I have the men's Olympic marathon DVRed, and will be tracking my amazing friend and training partner Missy as she competes in her second full Ironman triathlon in Idaho!!