Spring Break South Dakota Style

I've been on a glorious spring break for the last 1 week, and 1 day (and like several odd minutes, but who's counting?!?!).  Want to know how this wild and crazy girl lets loose for the occasion?

Last weekend I spent countless hours tucked in to my favorite cozy chair with my laptop on my chair arm (only b/c I think the fan is going out on my precious MacBook, so the little bugger gets HOT real fast when actually placed on the lap) watching Revenge.  I'd gotten sick of a ton of you crazy fools OMG'ing about the show every Wednesday night on twitter, and I realized that all the episodes were on Hulu.  Welp, ok, I'm now OMG'ing as well.  Congrats.  Ok, I didn't watch all 16 episodes over the weekend, but it was pretty darn close.

In the middle of a Revenge break, I figured I should probably attempt to attack my long run.  Naturally I'd waited until the middle of the afternoon, when it was 75 degrees out and 30 mph winds.  Oh, and I'd been eating Reese's peanut butter eggs at a rate that would make Kobayashi jealous.  Can you guess how that run went?

Five and a half miles later, I was home, and probably eating another peanut butter egg to console myself.

The one silver lining of a shoddy week of running last week, meant that I (should've been) mentally and physically prepped for my highest mileage week ever.  Mentally:  yes.  Physically:  TBD.  Monday I had 7 general aerobic miles with 10x100 m strides.  The first 2.5 miles I thought my calves were going to fall off on the spot.  And then they loosened up, and my "easy" pace was just shy of marathon pace.  yes please.

7 miles in 1:05:02 for a pace of 9:18.

Once I got home and logged my run I realized it was supposed to a) be a recovery run and b) be 6x100 m strides.  Erp.

Since I didn't have class on Tuesday night I got to enjoy a GORGEOUS 75 degree day of 12 miles.  Wheeeeeee!  Managed to leave salt marks on my black tank during the run.  Passed an adorable brindle pug on the bike trail (twice) and didn't pug-nap it.  Self control for the win!

Thursday night I had that terrible training run on my schedule.  You know, the one that you put on you're schedule when you're creating it, and you're like CRAP that's going to be the WORST.  And then you spent a significant amount of time forgetting about the training run, until all of a sudden you're at week 12 million of training (or so it feels like) and BOOM there it is again.  Gross.  Anyway, I had 11 miles with 7 at tempo.  Barf.

I spent 30 minutes freaking out about running in the heat, 80 degrees??  This is March right??  And then spent another 17 minutes tearing my apartment apart looking for some sport beans.  I don't claim to be the "neatest" person, but I know where everything important is.  Except my sport beans, apparently. I finally gave up and went for my run.

I expected to do 2 miles of warm up, 7 tempo and 2 cooldown, but after 2 miles my legs still felt like lead, so I went another.  I decided to go on the easier side of my tempo range for the majority of the miles, and speed up the last couple of miles.  I saw ANOTHER PUG around mile 4, and AGAIN resisted pug-napping.  For real, where are my 17 gold stars??!?!?

Just as expected, it was a tough @$$ run, and the heat didn't help.  A nice surprise was that my heart rate stayed mellow and consistent during the tempo miles.  While my heart was nice and tidy, my legs felt pretty junky, and I could NOT speed up during the final few miles as planned.

I did 11 miles in 1:37:50 for a pace of 8:54.  Tempo miles averaged: 8:27.

As luck would have it, I magically found two packages of sport beans in my purse while I was at work on Friday.  Because sometimes credit counseling becomes an endurance sport and you just NEED some sport beans, ya know??

Now for a wild and crazy Friday night of spring break, I was in my pjs at 5:25pm, and snuggled in bed watching Breaking Dawn.  Uh... more shirtless Jacob #amiright?  And now blogging away while watching Teen Mom 2.  Don't ask where that came from.... I couldn't tell you.  I have 20 miles on tap tomorrow, so I'll probably be thankful for this night of rest and relaxation.  And if not, hopefully there's a pug on my training run, because we know that the third time is the charm.