Hey friends!
I am coming at you today with an unconventional training log of sorts. I want to zoom out a bit and do more of a bigger picture training log than what the weekly posts typically address. I feel like it’s easy to get lost in the weeds a bit on the weekly training logs and I really don’t think I need to tell you guys that I run every day (most days, you know what I mean). I can sum up 75% of my training by saying, “I ran “X amount” of easy peasy lemon squeezy miles on the driveway this morning and there was nothing exciting to note.” If you are here for the daily deets, please follow along on Strava! It’s all there. In painstaking detail!
With that being said, let’s look at what November has looked like from a broader perspective! Side note: this actually picks up where my last training log left off, so that worked out quite nicely if I do say so myself.
Here is the mileage by week:
Week 1: 56 miles
Week 2: 57 miles
Week 3: 62 miles
My coach and I are trying out a new thing where I have a little bit more say in what my workouts are. For instance, he will say, “Let’s do a cruise interval with a fast finish. What are you thinking?” From there, I throw out some suggestions and see what sticks. I like having a little bit more control over what I am doing and in a time when a lot of most things in life are outside of our control, this is oddly comforting.
The first week, I did two workouts. The first workout was a fartlek. The workout called for a 2 mile warm up, then three sets of 3 minutes at threshold (~ 10k pace) w/ a 2 minute jog, 2 minutes at interval (~ 5k pace) w/ a 2 minute jog, 1 minute at faster than 5k pace w/ a 1 minute jog and a 2 mile cool down. I decided to do this one on the roads on a hiller than typical workout route (you know, for an added challenge) and I was really regretting that by the last set. Those hills ate my lunch! But given the terrain, my splits made sense. Paces were 5:49, 5:46, 6:14 for the 3 minute reps, 5:37, 5:43, 5:58 for the 2 minute reps and 5:24, 5:16, 5:43 for the 1 minute reps. I ended up with 9 miles on the day and the workout FLEW by!
Later that week I did a “fast and quick” track workout. The workout called for a 3 mile warm up, 12 X 300 at repetition pace (~ 1 mile race pace (i.e., all out)) with a 105 second walking recovery and a 3 mile cool down. In my mind, instead of seeing 105 seconds on the training plan, I saw 1:05, so I ended up shorting myself on the recoveries by 40 seconds! Ha. Thankfully, I felt GOOD that day and didn’t need the extra recovery to begin with. Seriously, this was one of the best workouts that I have had in quite some time. My splits for the 300s were 56, 54, 55, 54, 55, 54, 55, 54, 53, 54, 54, 54 (4:50 pace!). After this workout, John texted me and said that he thought I was definitely ready to go sub-5 in the mile. Stay tuned, because that is still one of my BIG goals!
The second week, I only ended up doing one workout. I was scheduled to do two, but I was having some serious stomach pain early that week, which caused me to scrap the first workout. We all know that stress does weird things to the body and it really puts my stomach in knots sometimes. I even went to the doctor because it was hurting so bad. In hindsight this seems a bit silly since I knew exactly what she was going to tell me, but it was nice to get some reassurance that it wasn’t anything major. It’s as easy as just eliminating stress from my life! Easy as pie. Speaking of pie, that actually might help! Right?!
I was feeling much better by the end of the week, which was a good thing because I had a doozy of a workout. I ran a short warm up, paced my friend Jessica in the McKirdy Trained Virtual 10k race, went straight into a 4 mile tempo and then did a short cool down. We had a great time with the 10k! I also paced her in the McKirdy Trained Virtual 5k a few weeks back and we were able to make some tweaks and adjustments to the pacing strategy that worked out really well. She ran a great race, averaging exactly 7:00 pace, and came away with a nice little negative split (the second 5k was slightly faster than the first 5k). My tempo miles immediately after were quite challenging! Oh. My. Goodness. I ran 6:06, 6:05, 5:59 and 5:58, but that was absolutely all I could muster. I ended up with 13.2 miles, making that my longest run since … MAY! I didn’t realize that until just now. Wowza!
The third week (last week), I did two workouts. The first workout was interval repeats. The workout called for a 3 mile warm up, 10 X 1:30 @ interval pace (goal was 5:22 pace) with a 1:30 walk recovery and a 3 mile cool down. I did this workout at the outdoor mall that was my go-to “quarantine” workout spot when the tracks were closed. The mall has actually turned out to be a nice workout option even in more normal times too! I felt okay for this one, but not stellar by any means. I averaged close to 5:35 for the intervals, which was slower that intended, but the effort was appropriate. Ultimately, that’s all that matters!
Later that week I did a threshold workout with some fast intervals to finish. I know I mentioned earlier that most of my runs are very bland, but there was some spice to this one. The workout itself was fine. It was a 3 mile warm up, 3 miles @ threshold pace (goal was 5:50 pace), followed by 8 X 40 seconds @ interval pace (goal was 5:22 pace) and a 3 mile cool down. I’ve got a good route for workouts that allows me to run from home, so that’s what I did. I debated meeting the group to run, but 1) I would’ve needed to wake up much earlier, 2) I would’ve had to drive 30 minutes each way and 3) I would’ve ended up doing the workout by myself anyway, so it just made sense 4) me to run from home. Get it? I’m a dork.
There was a high school kid missing in our area. He hadn’t made it home from school Friday and no one remembered seeing him on the bus. Admittedly, I was not as up on this news story as I likely should’ve been. Sure enough, two miles into my warm up, I passed someone walking on the side of the road in jeans and a hoodie, carrying a backpack. I thought to myself that this was very strange and I debated for a second about whether or not to call Richard to come check it out.
I decided to just keep on trucking on my route. I was about to start my workout and I knew that the person would have to really book it to catch me. Side note: the person who attacked me back in the day was wearing jeans and a hooded sweatshirt, so I was having a slight flashback. I honestly didn’t even think that it could me the missing kid, but was more concerned that it was someone up to no good. I hate that this is where my mind immediately goes, but it is what it is. I even decided to alter my route to avoid crossing paths with this person again (a decision that I should’ve made 15 years ago that would’ve changed things).
I put all this behind me and did the workout, averaging 5:56 for the 3 mile threshold and 5:17 for the 40 second pickups. I would’ve placed money on the fact that my legs were toast after that threshold, but sure enough the turnover was still there. After I finished up my workout and started the cool down, a dog started running with me. He (or she … no idea) ran almost 2 miles with me! I don’t know who it belonged to, but it was a beautiful little Australian Shepard mix and I really wanted to take it home with me. Since we all know that we don’t need any more animals, I had to be smart and not let it follow me home.
It wasn’t until I got back to the house and finished telling Richard all about my dog encounter that he asked if I had seen the missing kid. I told him about the person that I saw (who looked much more like a man than a kid from behind). He started giving a physical description of the boy and I finished his sentence by saying that he had a blue backpack. Someone else had already identified him at that point as well and he was unharmed, so all is well there. And, good news! I saw a dog today!
It’s almost Buddy the Elf season!