Goal for the week - HIT EVERY RUN. Monday: Easy three miles. Nothing too exciting to report about this run, other than I got to take my new sneakers out for a spin. Felt really good and I'm excited about getting them fully broken in. Tuesday: Which has recently become my "Track Tuesday". I brought my workout gear to work, changed and headed right to the track. Workout: 1 mile warm up, 3 x 1600 at race pace. 1 mile cool down. My approach to this was to enter the interval mode of my TomTom. The watch doesn't go to hundredths in interval mode, so I had to do either .2 or .3 for my recoveries. I settled on .3. Humidity was 94%. I had already decided that I'd be okay with having a run that was less than my goal pace. I set out trying to focus on breathing, longer strides and keeping my cadence up. Mile splits were: 8:54, 8:52 and 8:44. Holy cow! Did I really just do that and feel as good as I felt? (please note: any comparison I do within my training runs is only to myself and what I've done in the past. I understand that those are "easy" pace for a lot of people). This run really gave me the confidence that maybe under 2 hours is actually attainable. I also love how my TomTom showed the information from my intervals in it's own area so I was able to see exactly what my splits were for the workout. The summary tab just shows the splits for each mile. Wednesday: This was my husband's (I'm tired of calling him my hubby or husband so he'll be referred to as R from here on out) R's first day of summer break part 2 was this morning. He told me there was "no way I was going to wake up because he wasn't waking up". Normally, R is up over an hour before me and I still can't get myself out of bed. When he said that, I was like "oh yeah, you watch me". I dragged myself out of bed just to prove to him that I could do it. It wasn't until mid-run that I had realized, he'd used reverse psychology on me!!! He knew telling me I wouldn't do something, would actually push me so I would get it done. 1 point R. I couldn't help but laugh. Thanks R! This run was only completed because of you helping me get up and at it in the morning. I got my 3 miles in the AM done. They weren't fun and they weren't fast. Legs were trashed. I'm so brilliant, that I decided I need to fit another run in on Wednesday, on already dead legs. So smart. *insert totally sarcastic eye roll at my self here*. For this run, it was a 50 minute temp run. Hal says "A Tempo Run can be as hard or easy as you want to make it, and it has nothing to do with how long (in time) you run or how far. In fact, the times prescribed for Tempo Runs serve mainly as rough guidelines. Feel free to improvise. Improvisation is the heart of doing a Tempo Run correctly." (http://www.halhigdon.com/training/51133/Half-Marathon-Advanced-Training-Program). Knowing my legs were dead, I decided to take Hal's advice to improvise and make it as hard (or as easy) as I wanted. I decided on a 20 minute warm-up, 20 minutes pushing harder than an easy pace but not pushing so hard that I could potentially hurt myself and a 10 minute cool down. I did NOT feel like running. But, I put on my headphones, got a podcast going and went along on my way. My paces were faster than I had expected for being as tired as I was. My left hammy still feels a little off, but I'm thinking it is just build up lactic acid. I made sure to stretch and foam roll after. Thursday: Long run day. This week was 1:45, all at a slow pace. I'd heard about Generation UCan Super Starch drink from my local running store. The first time I'd heard about it was the day before the Broad Street run, so it wasn't some I wanted to try for the first time on race day. I finally picked some up before this run. I had the pomegranate blueberry flavor. Mixed it with 12 oz of water in my blender bottle (I mixed it really well, I'd been warned that it's thick). First, it was tasty! Yum! I also noticed myself start to feel more focused. It was an entirely different feeling that caffeine, it's hard to exactly put it into words. I felt my mood boost too. I took my hydration pack with me just in case I needed it and off I went. I would have been fine without my hydration pack. I also brought energy jelly beans, which I ate (but only because I was bored and they tasted good). I will 100% continue to buy more of this stuff to use for my long runs. I want to get a tub of it so I can experiment with making shakes for breakfast with it. But I digress! So, on my run I listened to two of my favorite podcasts and got into a groove. I tweaked my knee on my second run on Tuesday, which I felt during the run (and the next day). It isn't anything major, more of just a nagging thing. Stretching, rest, and some BCAA should take care of it. I was so happy to get this run done. While week 8 isn't my peak week, it was a high mileage week for me and it was a nice feeling to know I had on run left. Friday: REST DAY. When my body yells at me to rest, I listen! Hydration, stretching and BCAAs are the only things that happened Friday. Saturday: Plan was 1 mile warm up, 5 miles at pace and 1 mile cool down. Saturday was hot. I thought I started off okay but quickly into the 5 mile portion I was in a bad mental place. I stopped running, caught my breath and re-grouped. I felt like I'd gotten myself into a better mindset, but I didn't. This run was a total disaster. I felt like I had to choose between trying to hit my pace or finishing the run. I chose to slow down and do 5 miles at the warm up/cool down pace. I finished the run frustrated and hot. Definitely not how I wanted to close out week 8. Week 8 runs completed: 6/6 *GOAL HIT*.
Week 9 is a much easier week. It has 4-5 runs depending on if I choose to do an extra rest day or not. Based on how I'm feeling now, I may take the extra rest but I won't know for sure until this week kicks off. 4 WEEKS LEFT.
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