Week 9 and 10 of Spring Training

I spent way more time foam rolling my legs than I did actually doing this recovery run. Grrr. I have some monster crunchies in my IT band near my knee, and up by my hip flexor. Grrrr.

My tweaked my knee at work early in the week and ended up taking the rest of the week off from running. Not exactly ideal a few weeks out from race day, but showing up to the starting line broken isn't ideal either. Luckily the weather was ATROCIOUS so I didn't feel like I was missing out on much. I probably could've run on Sunday but I decided to be careful and give it another day.

Of course on Monday one of Kyle's friends was in town unexpectedly so we went out for dinner with him and friends, so I was in no condition to run afterwards. 

Wednesday morning I hit the treadmill before work since I didn't have to go in until noon. I had the beginnings of a cold and it was hotter than the dickens in the gym, so I had a tough time keeping my HR down in the general aerobic range. The run was a bit slower than I was expecting, but it still flew by. My knee started to twinge a little the last half mile, but otherwise it was a great run.

Wednesday night I started to feel TERRIBLE and when I woke up Thursday I could barely breathe and my sinuses felt like they were going to explode. I decided to shuffle my remaining workouts for the week to take a rest day. 

offending sinus

For Sunday's long run, I had some very serious math story problem variables to figure out at way too early in the morning. First I had to consult my garmin maps for previous long runs, as ever since I've moved (almost two years ago) I still sometimes get my mile markers confused with my old ones, as they're only 1.2 miles apart. This is normally nbd when I'm running alone, but when you're planning to meet up with someone, it can be really bad. Like the time I told Jenn I would meet her in 11 minutes at my one mile marker, only to realize when I was already on the run that I was actually meeting her at 2.2 miles and she was going to freeze to death waiting for me. :(

Then, after determining our meetups, we had to figure at what time each of us would have to leave our places at our respective running paces to meet up at the pre-existing meet up place. My brain hurt as I hadn't consumed any coffee lately, but I figured it out, nonetheless.

I took off in shorts in hopes that my legs could lose some of their transparency. Seriously. No filter can make these legs more pleasant to look at. Sorry. But shorts! I heart shorts. I should've just wore a t-shirt but I wore a long sleeved shirt and had the sleeves pushed up the whole time.

The first two miles was spent trying to get the phlegm in my throat to either come up or down. I felt like I was choking. Gross, sorry. My heart rate was high from the get go, and I think it was because my breathing was all off since I was breathing primarily out of my mouth.

I met up with Jenn at 4.7 miles, and was elated to have some company. We were both so excited to run in the warm weather that we didn't stop to think about how the bike trails would be with all of the snow and now it's all melting. It was such a sloppy mess of flooding/ice/snow. But still it was a run that wasn't in the freezing cold.

I started to feel pretty wiped out around mile 7. Not a good outlook for a 14 mile run, huh? Jenn took off for home around mile 8 so I still had six miles to slog through on my own. In to a 20mph wind. Meh. If I hadn't lost steam before, I certainly did then. Around mile 12, I was ready to call someone to come get me I was so cashed. My heart rate was crazy high (where it normally is during intervals!) yet I was only managing an 11:30 pace. Ugh. Struggle city, population: Jerbear. I ended up taking walk breaks the last two miles just to get my heart rate to come down.

Both of my knees are sore from all the change in running terrain, and my whole body--joints and muscles are incredibly sore. I seriously feel worse than I normally do after a 20 miler. I clearly should've taken another rest day or dropped down the mileage to 10-12. 

So this wasn't exactly the confidence boosting final long-long run leading up to the half in NYC but I'm still awarding myself extra credit points for completion. Woof.