Training Log – 05.12.19

Hey friends!

I’m back at it (both with blogging and with training)! I am thinking about jumping in a one mile road race in New Orleans in a few weeks, just to push myself and find out where I am speed-wise. In general, I am planning to shift my focus to shorter distance training over the next few months and then planning to shift back to marathon specific work in the fall. I’ve got my sights set on the Indianapolis Monumental Marathon in November, but (obviously) that’s still 6 months away so we’ll just see how it all plays out (i.e., we’ll just see how life goes).

Here is what training looked like the week of 05.06.19 – 05.12.19:

Monday – Easy: 8 miles (9:47 pace) + PM – Pilates

I’ve been doing Pilates once a week now for several months and I really want to go two times a week, but it is so expensive! Major bummer. I found a local studio that offers classes for much cheaper than the cost of a private session (definitely makes sense). This seemed like a potentially good solution. After talking to the owner, I went to the studio Monday to meet the instructor so that she could “evaluate my ability” and see if I was “good enough” for the classes. As it turns out, my abilities are not very good and I am not good enough for her classes. Well then … I honestly wasn’t expecting that (like at all). I know I am not a Pilates superstar by any stretch, but I definitely figured I could hop in a class or two without any issues.

Not only did she poo poo on my form and ability in general, but she also said that I was built like one of her other students … in her words “tiny but with a little bit of a belly pooch.” UM. I’m sorry … even if that’s what you are thinking, there is NEVER a need to comment on anyone’s body like that. I could likely write an entire post about that. She offered for me to come back to another one-on-one session and then *maybe* join her classes, but I was all “thanks, no thanks … sorry, not sorry.”

Side note: I absolutely LOVE my current instructor and would’ve continued with her regardless, but I was just looking for a way to get a little bit more strength work in and a little bit more bang for my buck.

Tuesday AM – Easy: 6.5 miles (9:49 pace) + PM – Easy: 4 miles (9:00 pace)

Wednesday – Easy: 7.5 miles (9:20 pace)

Thursday AM – Quality: 9.3 miles + PM – Easy: 6 miles (8:34 pace)

Thursday was my first “official” workout back after Boston!

I say “official” in quotations because I did go out and *attempted* to do a few quicker than normal miles on Friday of last week just to see how that felt. I knew I had my first workout coming up this week and I was not entirely convinced that I could run anywhere near the prescribed paces. Logically, it seemed like I should take the legs out for a test run to see what I was up against. My test run was a 2 X 2 mile progression run of sorts. I was planning to do all four miles consecutively, but after struggling through the first two miles in 7:02 and 6:45, I made the executive decision to take a breather and regroup. I wish this strategy had worked for me during Boston, but we won’t rehash that again. It worked this time! I was able to comfortably drop my pace down to 6:09 and 5:59 for the next two miles. Those last two miles gave me confidence that I had maintained a decent level of fitness.

So anyway … back to this week’s workout! The workout had some threshold and interval work built in. Specifically, it called for a 2 mile warm up, 3 miles @ threshold pace, 6 X 1 minute @ interval pace (with 1 minute rest in between each interval) and a 2 mile cool down. The treadmill was my best option for the threshold work and that is purely from a safety perspective. Occasionally I will run by myself outside, but never in the dark and rarely for a workout. I knew the intervals would be a little too fast and a little too short to effectively execute on the treadmill though, so this workout took a bit of pre-planning and almost became a relay of sorts. Jessica had some intervals to do as well, but her workout was a bit shorter than mine, so I started earlier on the treadmill and then we did the intervals and cool down together outside. Maybe not ideal, but it worked well and I was so thankful to have her with me!

My goal pace for the threshold miles was 5:54 (hence the above-referenced pre-workout uncertainty). I asked Coach John if the pace was maybe a bit rich, but he told me not to worry about it too much (ha!) and to just try to work my way down as I went. Seemed fair enough. I found some good music (my definition of good music is likely debatable) and got to work. Once I actually started running, the pace seemed totally doable and somehow three miles just really didn’t seem that far. I’m assuming this is some sort of residual side-effect of marathon training. My splits were 6:09, 5:59 and 5:46. I was very pleased!

All that was left now was 6 more minutes of running, which also seemed totally doable in the moment. Granted, the goal pace was a bit quicker (5:26 for the intervals). I had the intervals programmed into my watch, but I had to first save my activity and then switch my watch from the indoor run setting back to normal. I knew that the one minutes would roughly equate to 300 meters on the track, so I tried to use that as my gauge of whether I was close to my goal pace. I don’t ever look at my watch during timed intervals, but it was nice to have a frame of reference. My average ended up being 5:16 for the intervals (I calculated this after-the-fact) and again, I was very pleased!

Friday – Easy: 8 miles (8:54 pace) 

Saturday – Easy: 7 miles (8:50 pace) 

Sunday AM – Easy: 5 miles (8:38 pace) + PM – Quality: 6.2 miles

Sunday’s workout called for a 5 mile warm up, 10 X 200 minute @ repetition pace (with 1 minute rest in between each set) and a 5 mile cool down. We woke up to some major storms Sunday morning and there was no way I was getting outside to do a track workout before church. This worked out quite well because I got to spend some quality coffee time with my sweet mom on Mother’s Day instead.

I did hop on the treadmill to get a few miles knocked out, as I didn’t see myself wanting to do a long run with a workout later in the day. I was still planning to get the speed work in, but it would need to be part of a shorter run instead.

This plan worked out quite nicely and I headed to the track around 5 p.m. to run some 200s! The mile race that I am eyeing is in the evening, so it’s probably good to get my body somewhat used to running fast later in the day. 200s are my favorite track workout, so I was weirdly excited about this workout. I did a 2 mile warm up, changed into my “fast shoes” and knocked those 200s out. I also did a 2 mile cool down, so I got my total miles in for the day, but it was just slightly varied from the actual plan. I wouldn’t want to make a habit of that, but every now and then you just do what you gotta do to make it work in the circumstances. I averaged just under 36 seconds (35.8 to be exact) for the 200s and all of the splits were within less than a second of each other. I was very pleased with that consistency for sure! My coach was pleased with it as well, which is always nice.

Summer of speed is off to a very good start indeed (I made a rhyme :))!

Total – 67.3 miles

Have a great week!