Hey friends! What. a. week! 2024 is off to chaotic start and how is this only the third week of the year?! It feels like it’s been an entire year at this point. Ha. Week 3 was marked by icy roads, below freezing temps (not all that common here in lower Alabama), daycare closures, unexpected work travel and a whole lot of schedule shuffling! As most of you can probably relate (Type A runners unite!), I do not do well when things don’t go as planned, especially when it is out of my control.
Monday – Easy: 12 miles
I met Rebecca Monday morning for my “long run” of the week. I don’t typically start the week with a long run, but as I was naively planning out my schedule for the week, this seemed to make the most sense. The rest of the week didn’t go as planned, so this probably didn’t actually make sense, but oh well. Regardless, it was a nice run and a nice way to start the week!
Tuesday – Easy: 7.5 miles
I was supposed to go to the office Tuesday, but ultimately icy road conditions prevented me from traveling. I got up and went to the gym fairly early. On my way home, the icy rain really started to come down. At least I got my run in! Daycare was closed, meetings were either postponed or handled remotely and the day went on. My dad was a huge lifesaver as Richard and I both had busy workdays, but there is still something so stressful to me about being out of sync with our regular schedule. I know this is something that I need to work on, because the level of anxiety I felt this week was off the charts. When I take a step back, I know that nothing we were dealing with necessitated such levels of anxiety!
Wednesday AM – 60 minute elliptical + PM – Easy: 5.25 miles & Pilates
Wednesday morning daycare had a delayed opening. I had to give a presentation at work (with hundreds of people in attendance (hello anxiety!)) and Richard unexpectedly had to go out of town for work (hello more anxiety!), so I hopped on the elliptical and watched videos on YouTube of other people presenting on the topic I was covering. In my mind, I felt like I really *needed* to get some form of movement in before my presentation. However, I also know that this was just my anxious brain needing some sort of outlet. Perhaps I should learn to knit or something?!
After sitting in meetings from 9 until 3, I was able to get out for a short run Wednesday afternoon before heading to Pilates.
Thursday – Easy: 8 miles
Thursday afternoon I ran from home. I was able to wait until the warmest part of the day to run, which is something that I don’t take for granted.
Friday AM – Easy: 6 miles + PM – Easy: 6.75 miles
Saturday – Easy: 6 miles
I met Rebecca and Kara Saturday morning for six below-freezing miles. The feels like temperature was in the teens! I wore two pairs of tights, two pairs of gloves, tall socks, a fleece-line long sleeve shirt, a vest, a jacket, ear warmers and a toboggan. I was cold until about the last mile of the run, when thankfully the wind was at our back and the sun had started to warm things up a touch. I don’t know how you guys living basically anywhere else in the country do it! We did post-run coffee hangs afterwards, which was warming to the mind, body and soul!
Sunday AM – Quality: 2 mi. WU, 8 X 4:00, 2 mi. CD + PM – Quality: 2 mi. WU, 3 X 6:00, 2 mi. CD
After moving workouts around and basically not doing any sort of quality work all week, Sunday was finally the day to tackle my second double threshold workout! I am only doing these every other week or so and I was looking forward to seeing how this one went. I did the first workout on the treadmill. After running outdoors in below-freezing temperatures dressed like the Michelin Man the day before, I knew that I would not be able to run *fast* in all. the. layers. My goal pace for the threshold portion was 6:11. I warmed up for 2 miles by increasing my speed on the treadmill by 0.2 mph every 2 minutes. For the workout portion I alternated between 9.7 mph on the intervals and 7 mph on the recoveries. There was a one minute recovery between each four minute interval. I start bumping the speed back up at 45 seconds so that I am fully back at speed once the next interval starts. I felt really good for this one! I was tempted to run some of them faster, but knowing that I had a second workout to do later in the day made me think better of it.
I went over to my mom and dad’s house for my second threshold session (thresh-sesh!). They were able to watch Ward while I ran, which worked out really well. I ended up running on the track, which wasn’t really necessary, but was easier in the sense that I didn’t have to think about planning a route. I wasn’t entirely sure what the traffic would be like on Sunday afternoon and I didn’t want to have to bail back and forth to the sidewalk while trying to maintain a steady pace. It has been years since I have run at the track by my mom and dad’s house. I had completely forgotten how fast it feels running there! The track surface is much springier than the one I typically run on. My legs felt surprisingly good and luckily it warmed up enough that I was able to run in shorts. I ended up overrunning the workout a tad, but I also know that the splits are artificially inflated because of the GPS inaccuracy on the track. My watch shows the paces for the six minute intervals to be 5:52, 5:45 & 5:43. I think we can add 8-10 seconds per mile to those. Either which way, it was a success! After my workout, someone at the track commented to me that I just made everyone else at the track tired, to which I responded, “Including myself!”
Totals – 68.5 miles running, 3 miles walking, 60 minutes of elliptical + 45 minutes of Pilates
Talk to you guys soon!