Week 4 and Week 5 of Spring Training

Monday morning I hit the treadmill to run an easy shake out run. My legs were super heavy and pretty sore from my long run the day before. I don't know if I could've done further than 3 miles. The gym was ROASTING. I thought I was going to die. Luckily I didn't.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday I could NOT get out of bed. I went to bed at or before 10am and my 5:30 alarm came and went every single morning. I think my body is still fighting off my cold/sinus crap from last week, because I'm normally a-ok with 6-7 hours of sleep a night. Thank goodness my weekly mileage is still low and easy to swap around training days at this point.

Thursday I hit the grocery store on the way to work to grab some healthy snacks so I wouldn't be STARVING when I left work Thursday night. Starving Jeri = grabbing crappy food for dinner and then feeling like crap and not being able to run.

I got home played with the pug for a few minutes and then hit the treadmill. Still crazy hot in there. Wasn't able to pry the window open for some breeze, frozen shut--NEAT! The temp in the hallway is set at 72* and it feels FREEZING out there compared to the gym, if that gives you an idea of the temp.

I was supposed to do a general aerobic run, but my HR ended up being in my recovery range. After the first 7-8 minutes my heart rate dropped dramatically, so I spent the remainder of the run bumping up the  speed on the treadmill and being excited as my heart rate would settle back down immediately after. Whoop. Fitness. Orange shirt, green hat, purple shorts, yellow shoes, running eyesore. Sorry.


Friday's long run didn't happen. So I convinced myself to do my tempo run instead. I ran my 1.5 mile warm up, half mile at tempo and was GASPING for air. Ugh. Long run turned tempo fail.

As of Wednesday I was still planning to run the Frostbite 4 on Saturday, so with a slight heat wave (above zero) I attempted my long run after work. Around the 1.5 mile marker, I was making my way across a street when a car came barreling through a stop light. A car was obstructing my view, so I had about half a second to react and did some high knees/sprinting combo so the car didn't take out my left leg. After I made it out of the way, I turned around, and the vehicle hadn't even slowed down. WTF. I was wearing my glow in the dark (practically) hat, white coat with reflective strips, and black tights with reflective strips. I also had my handheld which has reflective strips. Scary scary scary. Clearly I need the bright pink nike tights I've been eyeing lately for "safety purposes."

After this encounter, I was obviously pretty shaken up, and then was treated to ice upon ice upon ice. I kept going thinking that the residential area I was en route to would be better, but I was wrong. I know our city has a 48 hour sidewalk snow removal law, but clearly people aren't following it. So since we'd had a warmish day, but it was now cold again (see: bright red face in the photo) the sidewalks had frozen over to super uneven ice. Grumble grumble. I decided to turn for home around 3 miles. To keep it interesting, on the back half, I ran hard on the clear sidewalk parts, and then teetered/tippy toed on the super ice parts.

Friday after work I hit the treadmill for a 3 mile shake out run. No photos because there were people and I can't bring myself to do the gym selfie in "public."

Saturday I had planned to run an hour easy, because Sunday looked the nicest for my 2 hour long run, but my stomach was super wonky all day long. Instead I watched season 1 of Homeland for the majority of the day, and finished a pretty terrible book (ugh, review to come in a bit). I scratched the race completely because the windchill was -15 at race time. LOLNOPE.

Sunday I woke up, and for the first night in a REALLY long time, I hadn't slept with a hooded sweatshirt on OR under my electric blanket with the heat turned up to HIGH. HEAT WAVE. Jk, the weather said it was -2. But a windless -2. WHOOP. I was planning to do my LR around noon, where it was going to be +10. My running friend Jenn (non-purpleshoe Jenn) texted me to let me know she wanted to come run with me, AND IT'S HER BIRTHDAY. So of course I said yes. BIRTHDAY RUN!!!

I dug out my balaclava to save my face, and Ollie wanted to try it on. I also dug out my yaktrax, but those don't come in pug sizes.

The run was pretty great. Some areas of ice, and holy wind on the back portion of our out and back. I was so thankful I brought my balaclava along for it. I did 3 minute pick ups every twenty minutes for the first half, and then kind of forgot about them/got tired/was sick of running in the wind for the second half. I did pick up the pace the last mile to have a strong finish.