Training Log – 01.28.18

Hey friends!

I am back at it after a little bit of down time post-marathon. I’m gearing up for the Wine 10K in Birmingham on 03.03.18. That only gives me 5 weeks to get ready, but I am hopeful that my marathon fitness will carry me through and that I can just sharpen up my speed some over the next few weeks.

Here is what my training looked like the week of 01.22.18 – 01.28.18:

Monday – Easy: 8 miles (8:32 pace)

All of my easy runs during the week went down on the treadmill. I couldn’t find the foot pod that I typically wear, so my Garmin data is a tad inaccurate for a couple of the runs. I took the foot pod off of my shoe the morning of my marathon because I didn’t want to carry any extra weight with me on race day (it probably weighs < 1 oz.) and then I misplaced it. Serves me right … silly rabbit.

Tuesday – Quality (Repetition): 2 mi. WU, 10 X 400 w/ 400 recovery, 2 mi. CD

Daniel is gearing up for another tri and so he’s starting to do some brick workouts. Tuesday morning he did a 20 minute bike workout while I did my warm up miles and then we went to the track together for some speed work. Daniel did 800s and I did 400s. It’s been a hot minute since I’ve done 400 meter repeats. My splits were 85, 89, 88, 89, 89, 91, 90, 90, 92 and 89. Ideally, I would like to get these down around 85 per lap, but that wasn’t happening yet. Perhaps I need to get my little legs together and go sit and reflect (a quote from CRAM Ram).

Wednesday – Easy: 8 miles (8:22 pace)

Another podcast. Another (inaccurate) treadmill run.

Thursday – Quality (Threshold): 3 mi. WU, 2 X 2 mi. w/ 5 min. recovery, 3 mi. CD

Thursday morning Daniel did another brick workout. He did a 30 minute bike workout while I did my warm up miles and then we hit the track again. We both did 2 X 2 miles. My splits were 12:44 (6:22 avg.) and 12:52 (6:26 avg.). I was very pleased with this one. My goal pace was 6:26, so I was right on track (pun intended).

Friday – Easy: 8 miles (7:39 pace)

Another podcast. Another (more accurate) treadmill run. I found my foot pod!

Saturday – Quality (Threshold): 3 mi. WU, 2 mi. @ threshold, 2 mi. @ marathon, 2 mi. @ threshold, 3 mi. CD

Saturday’s workout was a bit of a doozy. I had some quality miles as the middle 6 miles of a 12 mile run. The pace alternated every two miles from threshold pace, to marathon pace and back to threshold pace (well, that’s how it was supposed to be done anyway). My splits for the workout portion  were 6:27, 6:27, 6:48, 6:50, 6:40 and 6:51. The first four miles were right on pace with what I was supposed to do, but it was really tough to change gears back down to threshold pace after the marathon pace miles. I put some good work in and that’s really all that matters at this point.

Sunday – Easy: 10.8 miles (8:27 pace)

Sunday morning we went down to the Gulf for the Big Beach Half and Full Marathon. Several of my friends ran and I wanted to be there to cheer! Also, Rebecca and I had discussed the possibility of me jumping in and taking over her pacing duties. She paced the 3:40 group for the third year in a row, but she knew that she might not be able to stay on pace this year, as she is still healing up from a rib fracture. She handed her watch and the pacer sign over to me around mile 16 and I took it from there.

It was a little hectic for a little bit because I had on two watches and they never were showing the same pace per mile. Which one was right?! It was making me crazy! I finally decided that I just needed to go with Rebecca’s watch and so I flipped mine over and didn’t look at it anymore. I ended up crossing right at 3:40 (technically just over, but still under 3:41). I thought I was going to finish right at 3:39, but my math was off. It’s hard to run and do math sometimes. Sigh.

Total – 66.7 miles

That’s it for now! See you soon!