Hey again! Two days in a row. I’m on a roll!
Here is what went down last week, training wise:
Monday: 5 miles (8:21 pace)
We got home from Augusta around 3 p.m. or so Monday afternoon. I was able to meet up with some of the usual suspects for an impromptu group run after every one else got off work. We did a loop and it felt good to stretch my legs a little bit after driving all day.
Tuesday: 8 miles w/ 4 miles @ tempo (6:39 pace)
This week’s schedule called for Tempo Tuesday! Young Daniel did the workout as well and Husband Daniel rode his mountain bike with us. We did a 2.75 mile warm up (basically to get us over the biggest hills) and then it was time to tempo. The goal pace for the tempo miles was 6:20 to 6:30. It took us a good mile and a half or so to settle into the pace. The first two miles were 6:56 and 6:39. The 6:56 was a little disheartening because it definitely felt like we were working hard, but we didn’t let it get to us too much. The temperature and dew point were both in the 70s and so we knew that the goal pace range would actually be slower if we had adjusted it. I don’t always like to adjust it beforehand because I think I tend to use that as a crutch, when I’d rather just gut out the workout knowing that I did my best and check the adjustment after the fact to make myself feel better. Ha. Whatever it takes, right?
After the first two tempo miles we were cruising! I hit the last two in 6:31 and 6:32 and Young Daniel finished ahead of me. My tempo miles averaged out to just under 6:40 pace, which I think is very respectable given the conditions. We were definitely glad to have that one behind us.
Wednesday: 8 miles (8:42 pace)
Wednesday’s run was nice and easy to recover from the previous day’s stress workout. I did a loop with Young Daniel and then headed out for 3 more solo miles.
Thursday: 10 miles (8:08 pace)
The training plan called for 10 miles with 10 X 30 second pickups with a 1:00 recovery jog on Thursday. I typically use the workout feature on my Garmin for timed intervals, but decided not to for this one. I didn’t really have a set pace that I was trying to hit on the pickups and I didn’t specifically need to have the post-workout feedback, so we just ran by feel and used the overall running time to know when to start and stop the pickups and the recoveries.
We did the pickups during miles 5 and 6 of the run. The 30 seconds flew by and I definitely enjoyed this workout. Having the pickups gave us something to focus on and the pace naturally gets a little quicker during the recoveries and after the pickups after your body wakes up and your legs start turning over.
Friday: 6 miles (8:14 pace)
I hit up the treadmill Friday morning for a few easy miles. I listened to The Ali on the Run Show. She interviewed Danielle from The T-Rex Runner, whose blog I have read off and on for years. I thoroughly enjoyed the podcast and the miles flew by!
Side note: I decided to wear these lovely Nike spandex shorts that I want so badly to like. They are so darn cute, but about 10 steps into the run they are not where they are supposed to be and it stresses me out. Oh well, I tried. The treadmill is a really good place to experiment with clothing options (well … maybe not if you are on a public treadmill).
Saturday: 17 miles (7:58 pace)
Saturday was long run day! I had 17 miles to tackle. Several of us got started at 5 a.m., which was actually quite nice. We had 7 miles in the books by the time a few others joined in at 6 a.m. and somehow I always seem to almost “forget” about those super early miles. I guess my body is still half asleep or something … I can’t really explain it. Basically it felt like I only ran 10 miles, when I actually did 17, which I guess is a good thing! I didn’t quite get my pace down into the “moderate” range that I was supposed to, but I’m not super concerned with that at this point. The 17th mile was the fastest mile of the day at 7:00 flat, which helped to bring my overall average just under 8:00 pace. Whew!
Sunday: 11 miles (8:18 pace) + 3.15 miles (6:17 pace)
Sunday morning I got some much-needed girl time! I was originally planning to meet Rebecca for the second half of her long run. We also got to run some with Lizzie, Jill and Jessica, which was so great! We haven’t all gotten together for a run in several months.
Funny story … as we were finishing up the run, Rebecca came up with the grand idea that we should run a 5K that evening. The inaugural “Bras Across the CAUSEway” event was taking place that evening and of course at the time (i.e., riding those post-run endorphin waves), it seemed like a wonderful idea! I told her that I was in. I texted my coach to keep him in the loop and we planned to meet back up at the race that evening.
I’ll recap the race in a separate post, but the short version is that I ran a major negative split (6:40, 6:14, 6:01), which is likely due to the major headwind we were running into during the first half of the race and probably also somehow related to the fact that I didn’t do a pre-race warm up … I wasn’t planning to run this thing all out, so I just kind of went with it. It was a great event all-around and I’m really glad that we did it.
That wraps up last week’s runs. I’ll talk to you guys soon!