RNR NOLA: Week 1

Hi guys!

Whew. What a week. Tax season is officially in full swing. I think Rihanna says it best:

And gimme me all the work, work, work, work, work, work
You see me I be work, work, work, work, work, work
You see me do me dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt, dirt
There’s something ’bout that work, work, work, work, work, work
When you a gon’ learn, learn, learn, learn, learn, learn
Me na care if me tired, tired, tired, tired, tired, tired

So yeah. A little bit tired over here this week. It’s been a tough transition going from part-time to full-time (plus some). I’m not complaining. My work schedule is pretty fantastic. I just have to remind myself of that when things get a little hectic! For a split second I thought about posting something here that just said, “See ya after tax season!” and calling it a day, week, month, season (that still might happen, but for now, I’m still here :)).

As far as training goes, I had a relatively easy week and now we are officially gearing up for the Rock N Roll New Orleans half on February 5th. Daniel is running this one too (several of our running friends are actually, so I’m pretty excited about it)!

Since I just finished up a little mini training cycle for First Light, I’ll just be jumping right into another little mini build up for NOLA. This cycle will be pretty much the same from a big-picture perspective: primarily aerobic and lactate threshold (i.e., stamina) workouts, long runs (i.e., endurance) and a few V02 max (i.e., speed) workouts. Here is an overview of the workouts by category for the next few weeks:

Week 1: RECOVERY + Endurance
Week 2: Speed + Stamina + Endurance
Week 3: Speed + Stamina + Endurance
Week 4: Stamina + RACE

Here’s how Week 1 went down …

Monday: 8 miles easy (9:10 pace)

I assumed that Monday morning my legs were going to be very sore since I decided to forgo the cool down after my half marathon Sunday. I planned to go ahead and get a few miles in (nice and easy) Monday morning to work out the soreness.

It was still really cold Monday and some of the buttons on the treadmill were actually frozen! Pure craziness. The start button worked, as well as most of the buttons on the dash-board, but the speed up and speed down buttons weren’t working, which meant that I had to decide between 10:00 pace (6 mph) and 7:30 pace (8 mph). I totally went with 10 minute pace! Somewhere along the way I decided to try 7:30 pace, but that only lasted for a mile or so.

My legs felt so much better than I expected. They actually weren’t sore at all that morning. I thought I had dodged a bullet, but no, the soreness definitely set in by Monday evening.

Tuesday AM: 4.5 miles + strength training

Tuesday was the longest. day. ever. with a wake up alarm in the 3 o’clock hour, a morning workout, work all day and then coaching that evening (see below).

We got a few miles in before our session, which was great. When we got to the gym to start “lifting,” Greg kinda rubbed his hands together and said, “We’re gonna really beat your legs up today.” Oh great. How lovely.

This was the first session we’ve done where we didn’t do a single upper body exercise. It was ALL LEGS. My poor legs were not super happy with me Tuesday.

Tuesday PM: RW Group Run

I am coaching the half marathon training group at RW this spring and Tuesday evening was my group’s first official group run. I am excited to be coaching at the store again, but I think it might take a couple of weeks to adjust to my new routine. We started off with 3 miles Tuesday evening.

Wednesday: 5 miles easy (8:57 pace)

After a long day Tuesday I was pretty tired and wasn’t feeling super motivated on Wednesday. I called it a day after 5 miles.

Thursday: 8.5 miles easy (8:49 pace)

The first few days of the week were all about easy miles and recovery.  Thursday morning was another nice, easy run with friends.

Friday: 16 moderate pace miles w/ 10 X 30 second pickups (7:30 pace)

I realized this week that I am likely going to need to get my long runs in on Friday mornings since the half training group meets on Saturday morning. I don’t want to push the LR until Sunday because then my workouts for the next week would be off schedule. This makes for a fairly early wake up, but I’m getting pretty used to that at this point. I got up at 4 a.m. Friday morning and got 6 miles in on the treadmill before Daniel was up and as soon as he got up and ready to go, I hopped off the treadmill and did the rest of the run outside with him. It worked really well!

He was such a trooper with the “moderate pace.” He hasn’t done much speed work and so he was breathing pretty heavy by mile 4 or 5. I asked him if he was okay and he grunted something to the effect of “Yes … this is just what an all-out race effort sounds like [honey].” Ha. I was really, really thankful that he ran with me!

Saturday: 10 miles easy (8:59 pace)

The half marathon training group meets at the store on Saturday mornings for their long run. They started with  5 miles this week and they did great! I ran the 5 mile route with them and then Jessica and I went back out for another 5 miles after the group was done.

My mom and I also managed to get in a walk Saturday afternoon. The weather was gorgeous and the bay was super low, so we decided to do an out and back route where we walked out on the road and back on the beach. Time spent outside on the water is just what I needed. Vitamin D is good for the soul.

Sunday: 8 miles easy (8:56 pace)

Sunday morning was 8 easy miles followed by breakfast with friends (it was Baja bowls all around … also good for the soul).

That’s a wrap on this week’s training. I hope you all had a great weekend and have a wonderful week!