Sunday, March 26, 2017

Success is the sum of small efforts repeated day after day

Week of March 20 through March 26, 2017

Mileage: 60.1, with a track workout, a double, a fast finish run, a long run with a little marathon goal pace running (while also pacing a friend), and two bootcamps.

Spring pictures came back this week too!
 Monday - Strength bootcamp (45 min.) with an elliptical warm-up (45 min.).

Tuesday - 12.1 miles total with Track Tuesday and Runch!  8.5 miles total a.m.; 2 warm-up, 2 x 3200 m. (5:50/5:54, 5:56/6:03) with 800 m. recovery, 2 cool-down.  My goal for the 3200's was to run steady 1:29 laps for 5:56 pace.  I ended up with a 5:56 average, The Hard Way (e.g., uneven pacing and a positive split!).  I couldn't be unhappy with the workout, but I also would have been much happier had my splits been in the reverse order!  I also suspect that I would have run a faster average had I started more conservatively.  It's amazing what a difference just 5-10 seconds per mile makes!

I was ambitious and asked Daniel to run this one with me; he and I are pretty evenly matched on half marathon pace, but he has way more speed than me (i.e., he would annihilate me in a 5K).  He took us out fast, and our 2:53 first 800 m. came back to bite me in the last mile for sure!  The way we ran it made for a harder workout, and also for a disappointing final mile for me (he hammered his last lap in 1:20, making his final mile 8-9 seconds better than mine, but I was done!).  It was a good reminder that when I race on the track, I need to run my own race and not get sucked into going out fast or pacing with others.  I am usually good at doing this, but I'm not used to running at 10K pace so couldn't lock into it the same way I can half or full marathon pace.  There was another group on the track running speed work too, so I also got to practice passing, which was good for me because I imagine there will be a lot of shuffling going on in the 25 laps that are a 10,000 m.  I will find out what pace I can maintain for 10,000 m on the track on March 31!  I'll tell you what I'm certainly not running that day, and that's a 2:53 first 800 m!

Then my second run was 3.6 miles (7:34); I was worried my legs would be toast on this since my cool-down after the track workout was quite a slog.  I almost waited until after work to run it to give myself some more recovery time, but I feel that it's better for my family for me to do my second runs at lunch when possible (and with them being 30 minutes or less and planned well in advance, it usually is possible), and after a sluggish first mile I was fine.

Wednesday - 10 miles base pace (7:18) with Missy and Zach.  Girls' group was crashed by Zach and Jeff (who ran a different pace with Amy R.) for this one!  It was stupid windy, and we were running 7:30+ pace going out into it, then when we turned around we were running around 7:05 pace at the same effort, hah.  I also did some core work, mostly planks.

Thursday - 7.5 miles (6:57), with 2 fast finish miles intentionally, and what ended up being a pretty 7 mile progression run unintentionally (7:34, 7:25, 7:17, 6:59, 6:50, 6:16, 6:11), with Missy.  The planned workout was 5 base pace with a 2 mile fast finish at 6:20-6:30 (which my mind automatically revised to 6:17).  It was stupid windy again, and we ran 3.75 miles straight into the wind, then immediately upon turning around we were running much faster!  So technically my fast finish miles were wind-aided, but they felt great.  I'm going to be obsessed with locking into 6:17 pace for the foreseeable future.

Friday - Bootcamp (60 min.) followed by a 4 mile shake out (7:05)...usually I run before bootcamp, but when I have a chance to run after I feel much more warmed up and surprisingly not bothered by the jumping squats and lunges.  No complaints, just surprised!

Saturday - 19.4 miles...when a 15 mile day turns into a nearly 20 mile day...oops!  I paced Amy R. in the Highline Half, as her goal pace matched my long run pace nicely.  I was planning to run a mile before the race, pace her during the race, and then continue on for another mile.  I had 10 miles steady, then 1:00 pick-ups to 6:17 pace at the beginning of each mile during the final 5 miles, so I figured I'd do the pick-ups and then double back to get back with her for that part of the run.

It was storming the morning of the race, and the race organizers ended up delaying the start by 30 minutes.  Before I'd known that information, I'd run a mile and gotten drenched, and Amy had run 3 so was even more drenched.  Amy had 23 miles total for the day (her longest long run before Boston!), so we decided we would go run another 3 while waiting for the start and to see if we could get more drenched.  So pre-race I ended up with 4.3 miles at 7:20 pace.  Then I ran with her for 13.1 miles at 7:05 pace (my 5 x 1:00 pick-ups ranged from 6:09-6:20), and to help her out further I ran 2 of her 4 cool-down miles with her at around 8:30 pace.  I didn't realize until I uploaded the runs that I'd done 19.4 miles...if I had, I'd have run the extra 0.6 to get to 20, because, you know.  Fortunately, it was about 55 degrees, so we weren't cold, but it did rain quite a bit during the early miles of the race as well.  Amy rocked her race and finished in first overall female, with her final mile being her fastest!  I admired her a lot for making an all-out half marathon race into a 23 mile day, as I am not sure I could handle that!

We were cooling down here, but you can kind of see how soaked we are!
Sunday - 7 miles recovery (7:35).  I didn't have pep in my step on this one...possibly what happens when a scheduled 54 mile week becomes a 60 mile week, but we also had another very busy/tiring family weekend!

Moving on to next week, which is lower mileage with no true long run (boo), but with a 10,000 m race on the track (yay!) on March 31.  This will be followed by a half marathon on April 8!

Saturday wedding fun, Albani and her cousin Samantha

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