Hey friends! Here is what last week’s training looked like!
Monday – Easy: 7.75 miles (8:35 pace)
I started the week off with an easy run after work Monday afternoon. I listed to Kate Landau’s conversation with Sarah Crouch on the Running for Real Podcast. I got super invested in Kate’s story and the miles flew by. I met Kate when I did the Gate River Run 15k in Jacksonville, FL in 2019. I’ve listened to her on several different podcasts since then because she is someone whose story I can just relate to so very much. I appreciate her honestly and vulnerability in talking about hard topics and it’s amazing to see how far she has come!
At the end of the run I threw in a few strides and then I even did some drills as well. It’s not fun, but I’m determined to fit these in and improve my form.
Tuesday – Quality: 2 mi. WU, 4 X 2k w/ 3 minute recovery, 2 mi. CD
Tuesday’s workout called for a two mile warm up, four by two thousand kilometers (i.e., a mile and a quarter or five laps around the track) and a two mile cool down. This was a fairly long workout with 5 miles of quality effort. The 2ks were supposed to be done at threshold pace, which is somewhere in the 5:45 – 5:50 range for me currently.
My plan was to get to the track as close to sunrise as possible. For whatever reason, I don’t really feel comfortable or enjoy being at the track in the dark. I don’t mind running in the dark in some places, but the track isn’t one of those places. I wanted to get started early though, not only because I had to go to work (that pesky job is always getting in the way of bigger and better things (ha)), but also because I didn’t want to still be doing my workout when the football and cross country teams were showing up for their workouts. One week I finished my workout with what felt like 200 sets of eyeballs on me and I did not like that whatsoever.
As it turned out, none of the sports teams had morning practice (likely due to the teachers going back to work), but of course I didn’t realize that beforehand. Oh well. Just the idea of running into them got me up and out the door on time, so I guess that worked out for the best! I even had time to do my drills and strides in between the warm up and workout.
My times were 7:24, 7:18, 7:19 and 7:18 (which is between 5:52 and 5:57 pace per mile). I was a hair over goal pace, but I was really pleased with this one. The week before I was supposed to do a 5 X 1 mile workout (so the same distance as this) at the same pace and I couldn’t even hold the pace for two repeats. I started out a bit more conservatively than I probably would have otherwise because of the prior week’s workout. John told me ahead of time that if I couldn’t hit the paces that I needed to try to keep fighting through it to practice working on a “damage control” situation that might come up in a race. This would come in handy later in the week.
Wednesday – Easy: 6 miles (8:30 pace)
Wednesday morning’s run was just some easy driveway miles … err … as easy as driveway miles can be considering that you climb 100 feet per mile.
Thursday AM – Easy: 6 miles (8:41 pace) + PM – Easy: 5 miles (8:52 pace)
Thursday it was more easy driveway miles before work. After work I went to Pilates and got in an easy double with some drills and strides in afterwards. I’m on a roll I tell ya!
Friday – Quality: 3 mi. WU, 16 X 400 w/ 75 second recovery, 2 mi. CD
Friday morning I had a doozy of a workout with sixteen 400s. The workout was supposed to be a 3 mile warm up, 16 X 400 with 75 second recoveries and a 3 mile cool down. The plan was to get this done on the track, which is best for something like 400 meter repeats (seeing as how the track itself is 400 meters :)). Unfortunately, I wasn’t as lucky on Friday as I was on Tuesday as far as track availability goes. When I arrived at the track, there were tons of high school athletes there as well.
I had to make a game-time decision of what to do and I opted to head to the mall for what I like to call my “quarantine track.” During the months when everything was closed, I did almost all of my workouts in the empty mall parking lot. There are several good loops that can be done and it usually worked out really well. The mall isn’t closed anymore, but there was minimal traffic out while I was doing the workout. I think the workout probably would’ve gone better at the track, but I did it and sometimes that’s all that really matters.
My splits weren’t entirely on point. I averaged 83 seconds for the sixteen 400s, which is 5:32 pace. However, I split 89 for one of them, which is slower than my threshold pace and I also had to make an emergency bathroom stop mid-workout. No bueno. In the moment, it felt like I was really struggling on this workout, but in hindsight I’m just happy that I stuck with it and got it done.
Saturday – Easy: 7 miles (9:03 pace)
We went to visit Richard’s family over the weekend. It was really nice to get away for a few days and also really nice to run in a different location!
Sunday – Easy: 12 miles (8:34 pace)
I got in a long-ish run on Sunday morning and felt absolutely amazing in the process. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done a long run and felt like I could keep on going for longer than what the plan tells me to run. That run was a really nice way to wrap up the week. Woo to the hoo!
Total – 63.3 miles
That’s it for now. Have a great week!
You’re crushing it. I love the consistency and all the new blog format.
Thank you! Your training seems to be going really well too. I’m still super jealous that you got to race!