FLM: Week 1

Hello and Happy Monday!

The first week of training for the FLM half is in the books.

The beginning of the week was pretty boring, running wise. Daniel is taking a (yet to be determined) amount of time off from running. My other usual running buddies were tapering or taking time off as well, which meant I was left alone with the treadmill for most of my runs.

Things picked up at the end of the week though, so hopefully this post won’t be a total snooze fest.

Monday: AM – 8 miles on the TM (8:41 pace)

Tuesday: PM – 6 miles on the TM (9:45 pace)

Wednesday: AM – 8 miles on the TM (8:38 pace)
Wednesday: PM – 4 miles on the TM (7:31 pace) + Body Pump Express

So … I haven’t been to a strength training class in approximately 7 years. I also have done very little in the way of strength training during those years. I do core fairly consistently, but that’s pretty much the extent of it. Before Daniel and I met, I worked out and went to classes at the gym, but after we met, we’ve just been running our little hearts out. There’s not too much time for strength training. More accurately, I haven’t made time for strength training and I want to change that. Body Pump Express was a baby step.

Thursday: 2 mi. WU, 8 X 800 w/ 400 recovery, 1 mi. CD

I mentioned in my last post that I bombed my first workout of this training cycle …

The goal range was 2:54 to 2:57 per 800. Actual paces were 3:02, 3:05, 3:05, 3:03, 3:06, 3:09, 3:11, 3:19.

Can we say YIKES?! Obviously going to Body Pump the evening before a 5 a.m. track workout is not the brightest of ideas. I will not be doing that again! I also ran a half marathon last Saturday, so it’s possible that my legs were still somewhat fatigued from that. I think it had more to do with the lunges. I’m blaming the lunges.

Regardless as to the “why,” I do know for sure that my legs were absolute toast. I absolutely couldn’t make them move any faster. I thought after the first few, I would loosen up and be able to at least maybe get 1 or 2 under 3:00, but no, not even close. The only glimmer of a victory here is that I actually completed all 8 repeats and didn’t throw in the towel.

From now on, strength training will be done the day following a hard workout (and not the evening before).

Friday: 4 miles w/ Rebecca (7:58 pace) + Body Pump

Despite my griping above, I actually really enjoyed the Body Pump class [I can’t believe that I just admitted that … I don’t even know who I am anymore], so of course I had to go back for more.

There were more lunges and much more soreness was acquired.

This is totally unrelated to running, but we had our first fire of the year Friday evening! We were under a burn ban for quite some time anyway, but the temperatures plummeted Friday (in the 30s) and it was the perfect evening for a nice, cozy fire.

Saturday: 15 miles + 11 miles crewing for Rebecca

Here’s the fun part of the week!

We left early Saturday morning and drove to Daytona to support Rebecca at her 50 mile race. Yes. You read that correctly. 50 freaking miles. And y’all, she rocked it! I’m trying to convince her to write a guest blog post about it, so I’m not gonna share all of the details. It’s her story to tell.

To summarize: she ran 50 miles in 8:22 and was the 2nd place female finisher! She finished so strong (both mentally and physically). I ran with her from miles 16-31 and miles 39-50.

I had Ragnar flashbacks the entire time! Course maps, check in points, car paint, reflection vests, blinky lights, and multiple runs with short recovery. It was basically the exact same, except for that Rebecca ran the whole darn thing! She is amazing!

Sunday: 6 miles on the BEACH (9:20 pace)

Beach running is my happy place! I think I really just love being near the water. The beaches on the Atlantic Ocean were so different from the beaches on the Gulf Coast. They were much more hard packed and much more conducive to running.

Part of the race ran on the beach and so I decided to just re-run that part Sunday morning. When we were out there Saturday night it was dark, so we didn’t get to really take in all of the sights. I’m glad that I went back out and got to soak in more of the waves, sand and salty air.

Side note: There was a 50 and a 100 mile race. While I was running Sunday morning, there were still 100 mile runners out on the beach. They started at 6 a.m. Saturday morning and had been running for over 24 hours at that point. My mind was totally blown. That takes some serious determination (and a certain amount of crazy). It was pretty incredible to see.

That’s a wrap on week 1 of half marathon training. I’ve got hill repeats, a tempo run and a moderate pace long run on tap this week. I hope you all have a great week!

Questions:

Do you do strength training? If so, what all do you do and when do you do it (to not interfere with your running workouts)?

Do you want Rebecca to write a race recap? I know the answer is “Yes!”