Training Log – 07.19.20

Hey friends! Coming at you today with the latest and greatest installment of the weekly training log posts.

Monday – Easy: 7 miles (8:39 pace)

Monday was the Monday-est of all Mondays. We had a major storm blow through late Sunday evening that messed the driveway up again (after Richard worked ALL weekend to get it back into good shape nonetheless). We woke up Monday morning to a leaking roof, a live power line down in the yard and a four-wheeler that wouldn’t crank. Yikes. I found myself, yet again, unsure of how exactly I would be able to get to work. Needless to say, I didn’t get a run in before work, but thankfully the driveway held up much better than expected and I was actually able to get my car out without too much difficulty (shout out to all-wheel drive!).

In this weird year we are living in, this week was the tax deadline week and work was quite hectic. I was more than ready to get out and run a few miles after wrapping it up for the day. I’ve got a nice little route that I can run from work that is all either on sidewalks or in neighborhoods. It’s really nice to just be able to change real quick and head straight out the door.

Tuesday AM – Quality: 9 miles (3 mi. WU, 10 X 1:00, 3 mi. CD) + PM – Easy: 5 miles (8:42 pace)

I had a workout on the schedule Tuesday morning and I started out feeling a bit sluggish. I’m sure this had something to do with only having a 12 hour turnaround between runs. That’s one thing that can get a bit tricky with running in the evenings on some days and in the mornings on other days. Once I actually started the pickups, I felt fine though, so maybe I just needed to get warmed up.

The pickups were supposed to be done at marathon pace, but I found it really hard to settle in to marathon pace for one minute at a time. Typically in a marathon pace workout you gradually work down to the pace and then you sustain it for a long period of time. I ran the first interval close to what my goal pace was and then I ended up being closer to threshold pace for the remainder of the intervals, averaging 5:45 for the 10 intervals. Similar to last week’s 10 X 30 second workout, I ran in my regular trainers and I didn’t seek out a flat route, so I was definitely happy with how this one went down all things considered.

Tuesday evening I did an easy double, mainly just trying to kill a little bit of time after work before my grocery pickup slot. I found myself going back to some older Patreon episodes of Lindsey’s podcast that I hadn’t listened to and oddly enough, in one of the monthly catch up chats, she and Lauren actually talked about me. So random. They were talking about how much I have improved as a runner since I was on the show (little do they know about all the ways I’ve improved as a person as well :)), but Lindsey described me as “the girl with the tragic story,” which was not my favorite thing to hear. I see my story as more triumphant than tragic and I was disappointed to hear her describe it as such. Otherwise, they were complimentary, so I guess I shouldn’t focus on the one negative thing.

Wednesday – Easy: 6 miles (8:53 pace)

Wednesday morning I did an easy run from home. When I run from home I get a decent amount of climbing in (decent for Alabama anyway!). This run was just over 500 feet of climbing in 6 miles. I feel like all of the hill running that I have done in the last year has really helped me become a stronger runner. I changed so many variables in a seemingly short period of time that it’s really hard to know exactly what has actually been productive and what has potentially been pointless. Either way, I’m going to keep on keeping on as long as the results keep coming.

Thursday AM – Easy: 3 miles (9:06 pace) + PM – Pilates!

I did a very short, very easy run on the treadmill Thursday morning to give my legs a little break before the doozy of a workout that I had on tap for Friday.

Speaking of strength, there is no doubt in my mind that Pilates has played a vital role in the strength gaining process. I’m coming up on my two year Pilateversary (don’t even try to tell me that’s not a real thing), meaning that I’ve been doing Pilates once a week for two years now. Obviously I have missed a few weeks here and there, but for the most part I have been very consistent with it. I have a feeling that my Pilates budget might be on the chopping block once we get into this whole house building process, but I’m going to soak it all in while I can.

Friday – Quality: 8 miles (3 mi. WU, 2 miles @ threshold, 3 mi. CD) 

I was off work Friday and I waited ENTIRELY too late to start the workout. I wanted to spend a little bit of time with Richard that morning, while I knew I was going to suffer once I finally got out there, I convinced myself that it would be worth it. It definitely was not. Ha!

My workout was supposed to be a 2 mile warm up, 5k at threshold pace and a 2 mile cool down. The goal pace for the threshold miles was 5:50 and the workout notes simply said to ease into it. I decided to ease into it by working my way down into the low 7 minute range on the warm up. I felt good, but was definitely feeling the heat. The actual temperature was 81 with a feels like temperature of 89 degrees at this point and there was little to no shade on my route.

I honestly have no idea how this happened, but I ran a 5:42 first mile. I felt smooth and in control, but apparently was not quite ready to sustain that for two more miles. My next mile was 6:00 and I was working way too hard for threshold effort. I don’t know how the first mile felt so effortless and the second one felt so labored, but it is what it is. I decided that 2 miles at threshold was plenty and skipped the last quality mile. I rarely do this, but given the heat, I think it was the right decision. Not all workouts go as planned, but you definitely learn more from the ones that don’t go as planned.

I needed a reality check on both my pacing and my procrastinating. Lessons learned.

Saturday – Easy: 10 miles (9:10 pace) 

Saturday’s run was a very special one! I got to run with several of my best running buddies on our bachelorette weekend. We had one bride to be and one bride “after the fact” (me!). Our trip was originally planned for mid-April, but we rescheduled because of the virus. I don’t know that things are actually any better at this point, but we took as many precautions as we possibly could to minimize interaction with the outside world. I pretty much live a hermit lifestyle as it is, so this entire “quarantine” hasn’t looked that much different than regular life for me. Work went on as it always has and that’s pretty much the only place I go.

I have been doing the majority of my runs solo these days, which not only is a huge change from years past, but also makes each run where I get to be with friends even sweeter. 10 miles is the longest run I have done in over a month and I was feeling both the previous day’s workout and the rooster incident. It was nice to get a double digit run in and then even nicer to have the rest of the day to relax. We spent some time on the beach and I got in a glorious little snoozle. I was a happy camper!

Sunday – Easy: 7 miles (11:02 pace)

Sunday morning a few of us ventured out for another “vacation” run before we headed home. I even managed to trick convince Rebecca to join me for a few miles on the beach. Beach running on the Gulf Coast is HARD. The sand, while beautiful, is super soft and not very conducive to running. We had a few small mishaps (one that closely resembled a game of dominoes), but otherwise we had a blast!

Total – 55 miles

Have a great week!