Hey friends!
I hope you are enjoying a long weekend! It’s hotter than blue blazes out there. On the training front, this week was pretty chill with one major workout. The mileage was a bit lower than it has been. I’m doing a one mile race NEXT WEEKEND and I’m SUPER excited about it!
Here is what training looked like the week of 05.20.19 – 05.26.19:
Monday – Easy: 8 miles (8:35 pace)
Tuesday – Pilates (45 minutes)
Wednesday AM – Easy: 9 miles (8:43 pace) + PM – Easy: 3.5 miles (8:51 pace)
Wednesday morning I had an eight mile easy run followed by 6 X 20 second hill repeats. I got the easy miles done on the treadmill and made my way over to my designated hill once it was light enough outside. I don’t think there was anything too remarkable to report about this other than that 20 second hill repeats are MUCH easier than one minute hill repeats (which likely goes without saying) and my average pace was 5:50 (as opposed to 6:45 last week when I did the one minute repeats).
Wednesday evening I met a few friends (some old, some new (but none borrowed or blue)) for the “inaugural” Wednesday evening group run! Karen started a local running group for anyone that wants to come join. I’m so glad that she took the initiative to do this. It’s something that I had been tossing around in my brain for a while as well, but oftentimes it seems that I get so hung up on the details of something (admittedly thinking about how to make it perfect) that I don’t even attempt to do whatever it is that I am thinking about doing in the first place … paralysis by analysis if you will.
Thursday – Quality: 11 miles (7:19 pace)
Thursday’s workout had some threshold and interval work included. Specifically, it called for a 2 mile warm up, 2 miles @ threshold pace, 6 X 400 @ interval pace (with 75 second rest in between each interval), 2 miles @ threshold pace and a 2 mile cool down. Goodness. Luckily it worked out that Jessica could come over again this week so that we could do part of our workouts together!
There was a significant amount of pre-planning that went into this one and we both agreed that once we had figured out what time we both needed to start and where we were meeting and seeing each other throughout the workout, the hard part was basically complete! Ha. If only …
I started a tad earlier on the treadmill and then we both went over to the track to do the majority of the workout. My goal pace for the threshold miles was 5:54 again this week. The goal paces are based on your VDOT score, so unless that changes (based on a race result or increased fitness, etc.), your workout paces stay consistent from one week to the next. I hit the first two threshold miles in 5:58 and 5:51. I was drenched in sweat after the warm up and those first two threshold miles on the treadmill. I think it actually felt hotter inside than it did outside. Once I got outside and got some air flow going, it actually felt better! So maybe this is the trick to making summer running not feel quite as brutal. Run on the treadmill first and then outside will be a (literal) breeze.
After I got to the track, I went straight into the 400s. My goal pace for those was 5:26, which would’ve been 81-82 seconds per lap. I really focused on running the lap I was in and not worrying about the remainder of the workout. My splits were 80, 78, 78, 78, 78, 78! I was really happy with the consistency there. Now all that was left was two more miles at threshold pace. After running interval pace for the 400s, threshold pace actually seemed very manageable. What a nice surprise! Because of GPS limitations on the track (i.e., the watch records data every few seconds and then plots your path between the data points), my splits are a little wonky on those last two miles, but I know my total time for the full 8 laps was 11:44. The splits were something like 5:50 and 5:54. They show as 5:42 and 5:46 on my watch, but it took me 16 more seconds to get back to the “finish line” on the track, so I spread those seconds out evenly over the two miles.
Friday – Easy: 8 miles (8:42 pace)
Saturday – Easy: 10.5 miles (9:04 pace)
Sunday AM – Easy: 5 miles (8:21 pace) + PM – Pilates
Total – 54.9 miles
Have a great week!