Hi! Hey! Hello!
It’s time to recap another month of running and randomness. I’m so glad that December is here! I am feeling quite festive. I know I already showed you our Christmas tree, but just in case you missed it …
Out of the 8 years that Daniel and I have been together, this is only the second year that we’ve ever even gotten a Christmas tree and I am so glad that we did! It smells amazing and it was actually a lot of fun to hang up all of our medals and reminisce on some fun race memories.
Month Recap: November 2017
The Running
Workouts: I had several good tempo runs and long runs this month! Marathon training is officially here. After recovering from a mild hamstring strain at the end of October, November was definitely a strong month. I am still trying to be very careful with the hamstring and am seeing my sports chiro weekly to stay in tune.
10 miles w/ 10 X 1:00 pickups
1.5 mi. WU, 3 X 3 miles (6:46 avg., 6:44 avg., 6:35 avg.), 1.5 mi. CD
10 miles w/ 5 easy (8:28 avg.) and 5 brisk (6:45 avg.)
20 miles w/ 10 easy (7:56 avg.) and 10 brisk (7:02 avg.)
22 mile long run (8:16 pace)
1.5 mi. WU, 4 X 2 miles (6:40 avg., 6:30 avg., 6:31 avg., 6:25 avg.), 1.5 mi. CD
Favorite workout: My favorite workout was probably the 10 miles with 5 easy and 5 brisk. The brisk pace is about 20 seconds slower than lactate threshold pace and 10 seconds slower than aerobic threshold pace, which makes it fairly close to goal marathon pace. It was my favorite primarily because the weather was perfect the morning of this workout. I felt strong and it was a good confidence builder.
Races: I ran 4 races in November and that’s exactly how I like it! I got a little bit of everything with a 5K, a 10K, a 12K and a 10 mile race.
Favorite Race: My favorite race was the Turkey Trot, but the Battleship 12K was definitely a close 2nd! I think the weather, the friends, the cause and the homemade medals were the biggest contributing factors to choosing the Turkey Trot as the favorite. I love the course of the Battleship 12K, but the weather wasn’t great and not as many of my peeps ran that one this year.
Paces: My paces ranged from 5:49 (last mile of the Turkey Trot) to 9:10.
Total miles: 316! Phew. Highest mileage month in quite some time (perhaps all year). Again, marathon training is officially here!
Distances: Distances ranged from 3 miles to 22 miles.
That’s all I’ve got for today. Have a wonderful weekend and I will talk to you guys again soon!
Great work, Sam, especially with the cranky hammy; I hope you’re back to 100% soon!
Great work, Sam, especially with the cranky hammy; I hope you’re back to 100% soon!
I love your tree! We still have to put up the medal tree and haven’t yet. Hopefully this weekend I can get that done. I have a cranky glute right now and am having to scale back training a lot, which is sad because my mileage was already really low. Congrats on all your races and it sounds like marathon training is going really well for you!
I love your tree! We still have to put up the medal tree and haven’t yet. Hopefully this weekend I can get that done. I have a cranky glute right now and am having to scale back training a lot, which is sad because my mileage was already really low. Congrats on all your races and it sounds like marathon training is going really well for you!
316 miles! WOW! That’s amazing. And with all of that quality in there too. You are making such awesome progress. Your training is really inspiring to me.
316 miles! WOW! That’s amazing. And with all of that quality in there too. You are making such awesome progress. Your training is really inspiring to me.