Dallas Training Week 5

Monday Planned: GA+Speed 8 miles, 2 sets 4x150 strides
Monday Actual: GA+Speed 8 miles, zero strides. It was so cold and windy that the thought of doing strides after and then standing for 30 seconds in between made me freeze to death. Brrrrr.

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest

Wednesday Planned:  Recovery+speed 3 miles w 4x100
Wednesday Actual: 3 recovery miles with 4x100 strides at the group run. I'm glad I asked a running buddy to join me (as all of the regulars were out of town for the holiday). We had quite the creeper follow us for awhile. Yikes.

Thursday Planned:  Banquet 10k, 10 miles total
Thursday Actual: The night before this race I completely talked myself out of doing it. There was a chance of freezing rain, and I realized that a charity race that raised money for hungry people was not the race to try to run a really fast 10k. Derp. Instead I slept it with plans to run 10 miles mid-morning, but then I slept in way too late. oops. family snuggles >>running 

Friday Planned: Recovery 3 Miles
Friday Actual: I skipped the coffee run (aka running buddy Kristin's birthday run :'( ) due to an unhappy stomach from thanksgiving. I was so bummed.

Saturday Planned: Long Run 13.1 miles
Saturday Actual: Long run 13.1 miles with a fast finish. It was such a beautiful day for a long run, it felt like night and day from last week's run!

Sunday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles
Sunday Actual: Rest. I woke up and it was freezing. I checked the weather for the warmest part of the day, and it didn't EXIST. Only freezing. I couldn't do it.

Total Mileage Planned: 41 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  24.46 miles

Weekly Reads: Every Breath

When I saw that Nicholas Sparks had a new book coming out, of course I had to put myself on hold for the library's copy. I wasn't a big fan of his last one, but I was definitely in the mood for a sweet love story that might make me shed a tear or two. The book was good, and pretty expected. Definitely pick it up if you're a Sparks fan.

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

Hope Anderson is at a crossroads. At thirty-six, she's been dating her boyfriend, an orthopedic surgeon, for six years. With no wedding plans in sight, and her father recently diagnosed with ALS, she decides to use a week at her family's cottage in Sunset Beach, North Carolina, to ready the house for sale and mull over some difficult decisions about her future.

Tru Walls has never visited North Carolina but is summoned to Sunset Beach by a letter from a man claiming to be his father. A safari guide, born and raised in Zimbabwe, Tru hopes to unravel some of the mysteries surrounding his mother's early life and recapture memories lost with her death. When the two strangers cross paths, their connection is as electric as it is unfathomable . . . but in the immersive days that follow, their feelings for each other will give way to choices that pit family duty against personal happiness in devastating ways.

Illuminating life's heartbreaking regrets and enduring hope, Every Breath explores the many facets of love that lay claim to our deepest loyalties -- and asks the question, How long can a dream survive?

Dallas Training Week 4

Monday Planned: GA 8 Miles
Monday Actual: After a very full and long day of transporting my dad from home back to Sioux Falls back to home, and me back to Sioux Falls, after sitting in a waiting room during a 3+ hour eye surgery, I was more than ready for a run and Mexican food. 

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest, more doctor appointment visits.

Wednesday Planned:  Recovery 3 miles
Wednesday Actual: 3 easy recovery miles into some intense wind. Uff da. I kept it nice and easy since I was nervous about the next day's Speedwork. 



Thursday Planned:  VO2 max 10 miles with 2 sets of 2x1200 and 1x800.
Thursday Actual: I ran 2 laps around the track, was blown into lane 3 and said eff it and went home. not my finest moment.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles
Friday Actual: Coffee run with Kristin! 4 miles.

Saturday Planned: 13 miles with last 3 at LT
Saturday Actual: 13.1 miles in what feels like 5 degrees, freezing wind. I convinced myself to do the whole thing by saying I didn't have to do the speedier portion. It was a struggle to do this run solo.

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Rest. I had actually hoped to do some recovery miles to make up for Thursday's skipped-ish run, but it just didn't happen. I did some grocery shopping, meal prep, and a giant nap mid-day.


Total Mileage Planned: 38 miles
Total Mileage Actual: 29 miles

Race Goals: Banquet 10k

Tomorrow is our local Banquet 10k, a benefit for the local homeless shelter in town. It's a donation based race with no official timing, and last year was my first time doing it. It was my last race of 2017, and I really surprised myself with how well I did.

This year's race is 2-ish weeks before the Dallas Half, so I'm hoping it can serve as a confidence boost for a strong half. Last year, I averaged an 8:33 pace, which I was really pleased with. This year, I'd really like to hold a 8:15 pace for the race. I'm unsure what the race course is this year, as the race site has moved and it sounds like the route will be through the fairgrounds, which I'm not sure how that'll work. Regardless, I hope to run a strong 6.2 miles to kick off Thanksgiving!

A goal: Under 8:15 pace.
B goal: Under 8:25 pace
C goal: Faster than last year.

I'm choosing to focus on the overall paces instead of time goals, since a donation-based race like this will typically not be an exact race distance, which is totally fine. But I want to stay focused on my pace and not let a wonky distance mess with my brain. And I get to meet Melissa for extra miles before and after for 10 for the day.

Gobble gobble!

Weekly Reads: Sadie

Sadie is a book I had been hearing a lot of buzz about, so I was really excited to get a copy from my library. It's told in alternating perspectives, one from a podcast set in the present, and the other from Sadie, who the podcast is about. The book was incredibly fast-paced, disturbing as hell, and almost too intense to read as quickly as I devoured it. I would highly recommend this book!

My rating: 5 stars.

Summary from goodreads:

Sadie hasn't had an easy life. Growing up on her own, she's been raising her sister Mattie in an isolated small town, trying her best to provide a normal life and keep their heads above water.

But when Mattie is found dead, Sadie's entire world crumbles. After a somewhat botched police investigation, Sadie is determined to bring her sister's killer to justice and hits the road following a few meagre clues to find him.

When West McCray—a radio personality working on a segment about small, forgotten towns in America—overhears Sadie's story at a local gas station, he becomes obsessed with finding the missing girl. He starts his own podcast as he tracks Sadie's journey, trying to figure out what happened, hoping to find her before it's too late. 

Meal Prep Fun

Last spring, I got the great idea that Toni and I should meal prep and swap food during marathon training. And then she moved away and that didn't happen. A few weeks ago, I was talking to my running buddy Maren about fueling during training, and I mentioned what I had hoped to do with Toni, and she was totally on board!

Her significant other travels a lot and Kyle refuses to eat any of my delicious but healthy, typically meat-free meals, so it worked out perfectly. So far we're on week two. And it's going great! We check in on Saturday or Sunday with what we're thinking of making for the week, 2-3 meals, and then I've been off to the store to shop and Sundays are for meal prep! We've been making our way through Run Fast East Slow and Run Fast Cook Fast Eat Slow.

Week 1 we swapped ~2 servings of two lunches and two breakfasts. I made a goat cheese broccoli soup, the Thai quinoa salad, and blueberry banana pancakes. Maren made the southwest salad, a delicious mushroom risotto, and the best little egg frittatas. Yum.

 

 

This week, I made a superhuman soup with curry and coconut milk and veggies. My house smells so good. I also made the edamame orange kale salad and attempted to recreate the mini egg frittatas that Maren made last week.

Maren made a stew and a chicken veggie rice bowl. I'm so excited for all the delicious food I have to eat this week!!

Spring Race Plans

One of my favorite parts of running is planning out my racing schedule, and it's that time again! This spring, my focus is on a speedier half marathon. I'm hoping I can come close to my PR in the half, or maybe squeak out a new one and I'm giving myself two chances to do it!

I plan to run the 605 Half Marathon in late April. It's a very flat course, that I run almost every weekend for my long run, and it's put on by my buddies at the 605 Running Co. If the weather is as perfect as last year, look out PR! I'm coming for you.

A group of us also signed up for the Fargo Half Marathon. I did the marathon in 2011 and it was such a fun experience that I really want to go back, but only for 13.1. You'd have to pay me to train for a marathon through our winters and then race on a warm spring day. Hard pass. The group of us gals are all shooting for a low 1:50/sub 1:50 so it'll be really fun to train hard and see what we can do. I also like Fargo because it's a Saturday, so it's fun to go out that night to celebrate! Runners gone wild! Lolz.

I'll run a few shorter races as well, but I am focusing on racing less this spring compared to last spring. Last spring I *may* have been overarching (I definitely over raced). I plan to run the Frostbite 4 Mile in early February. I really enjoyed this race last year, and arguably it was one of my better performances for all of 2018. I like to see where my speed is at before training starts so I can see where my speed paces should be. I also like that there are 4 courses that they choose from based on the wind since it's in the dead of winter.

I also plan to run the Chilly Cheeks 5 mile in early April as a tune up race for the 605 Half Marathon. Why are all these races indicating that it's cold as balls here? Oh. Because it is. I think I can run 4 and 5 mile PRs this spring, so that's fun!

So just four races, and hopefully a lot of strong training miles with zero time off for sickness and/or injury. I think I hit my max of being sick in November so I should be good for a few years!

What's on your schedule?!?

Dallas Training Week 3

Monday Planned: Endurance 10 miles
Monday Actual: 10 miles, 3.24 miles, what's the difference? It was very clear that my body still wasn't ready to tackle training fully. I did a small loop around town and called it quits.

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: I ran to vote! Just a short 2 ish mile run.

Wednesday Planned:  Recovery 4 miles 
Wednesday Actual: 

Thursday Planned:  VO2 Max 9 miles 5x1k @ 5k
Thursday Actual: Still not well enough to run, especially hard. I skipped POWER for sleep and when I tried to go after work, the roads were so bad from the snow that I wasn't able to. This was also my final decision day regarding the marathon vs the half. Half it is!

Friday Planned: Recovery 3 miles
Friday Actual: I must've turned off my alarm because I woke up to a text from Kristin asking if I was planning to come to the run, 2.5 hours after she sent it.

Saturday Planned: 18 Mile Long run 12 mile long run
Saturday Actual: 12 mile long run. The windchill was 1 degree. It was so cold and windy and at times I thought my face and fingers were going to fall off. But then when the wind was at our backs, the miles flew by!

And then we bRUNched!

Sunday Planned: 
Sunday Actual: 

Total Mileage Planned: 48 miles
Total Mileage Actual:

Weekly Reads: An Absolutely Remarkable Thing

An Absolutely Remarkable Thing is by debut author Hank Green. You may be familiar with Hank Green if you're a Nerdfighter, but if you're not, his brother is John Green and he's equally as awesome. I was super excited to check out (hehe, library joke there) his new book. The story was a little slow moving to me, and had I not volunteered to review it for the young adult book committee I serve on, I may have returned it to read at a later date. Once I got to the final 100 pages, I couldn't put it down. So a good story, but the pacing was just not my favorite.


My rating: 4 stars

Summary from goodreads:

The Carls just appeared. Coming home from work at three a.m., twenty-three-year-old April May stumbles across a giant sculpture. Delighted by its appearance and craftsmanship--like a ten-foot-tall Transformer wearing a suit of samurai armor--April and her friend Andy make a video with it, which Andy uploads to YouTube. The next day April wakes up to a viral video and a new life. News quickly spreads that there are Carls in dozens of cities around the world--everywhere from Beijing to Buenos Aires--and April, as their first documentarian, finds herself at the center of an intense international media spotlight. 

Now April has to deal with the pressure on her relationships, her identity, and her safety that this new position brings, all while being on the front lines of the quest to find out not just what the Carls are, but what they want from us.

Dallas Marathon: An Update

Well, as soon as I made my Dallas Marathon plan public information, my body got wind of what I had up my sleeve and promptly shut down.

At the time of writing this post, I have been sick for 7 full days, which is longer than I've ever been sick, continuously in my entire life, to my best recollection. Every day I'd go to sleep after hydrating like crazy, taking medicine, drinking all the tea, going to bed early, skipping runs, and expect to wake up and *finally* feel like myself. And every day I'd wake up and think, "Shit, how am I still sick?!?!"

With each day that passed, I felt my marathon training slip a little further and further out of the realm of possibility. I gave myself until Thursday in hopes that I could salvage one speed workout feeling 100%. But guess what! Nope. I woke up. Still sick. Although a million times better than I was feeling.

I'm bummed because I really did want to take one more crack at 26.2 miles this year. But it'll have to wait until next fall. On the bright side, if my body was going to decide that it didn't want to run another marathon, I'm thankful it was the immune system portion and not the muscular-skeletal portion. One is a much quicker turn around overall. Unfortunately in a six week training cycle with a three week taper, being sick for 1+ weeks really does a number on things.

I am excited to run the half marathon in Dallas. Despite the significant hills that the elevation map is showing me, I think I can wrap my brain around one more crack at a hard effort 13.1 miles this year. I have a really strong endurance base from the marathon, and since I don't have to taper as extremely for a half, I have a couple of extra weeks of training to fine tune some speed. Plus since it's a vacation to see a friend, I'll have more time to relax and enjoy myself without being worried about OMG ANOTHER MARATHON.

So I'm bummed, but I'll survive. And I'll be more than amped up to start tackling crazy long-long runs again once this summer rolls around.

And this means that maybe Dominique and I can run together (hopefully I can stick with her better than I did in 2012, woof!).

Dallas Training Week 2

Monday Planned: GA 8 miles
Monday Actual: GA 8 miles. Some hills, finally felt back to normal and the run was amazing. Phew!

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest 


Wednesday Planned:  VO2 Max 8 miles 5x600m @ 5k
Wednesday Actual: VO2 Max 8 miles 5x600m @ 5k. Kristin joined me for the workout, which was great. We saw a car get hit and drug by a train, which was crazy, and then proceeded to run the most consistent repeats of my entire life time. We dressed as bananas for the cool down run, obviously. It was Halloween after all.

Thursday Planned:  Recovery 4 miles
Thursday Actual: Super easy recovery run. I wanted to keep it extra easy so Friday's long run wouldn't feel so hard ~14 hours later.

Friday Planned: Long run 16 miles
Friday Actual: UGH. 0 miles. Thursday night I was super cranky and wanted to go to bed at 8:30 p.m. I woke up 2 hours later and was so congested I couldn't breathe, my head was pounding and my nose would randomly start pouring out snot. I went back to bed thinking I'd feel better later in the day, but I only felt worse.

Saturday Planned: Rest
Saturday Actual: I had hoped to move the long run to Saturday. Luckily for me, I had to work and just didn't feel well enough to go for the run after a full day of work.

Sunday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Sunday Actual: Again, I had hoped that I'd be able to get in my long run. I even had company for the first and second loops lined up. After 90 minutes of work, and clammy sweats, I cancelled on my buddies, opting for another rest day. I feel like since I put my hope to run another marathon out into the world, my body is PISSED. Fingers crossed next week is a strong, healthy one!


Total Mileage Planned: 40 miles
Total Mileage Actual: 20.1 miles

Weekly Reads: Surprise Me

I received a e-ARC of Sophie Kinsella's newest book Surprise Me to read and review. I always love Sophie Kinsella's books, especially when I'm needing a nice light read. I didn't get a chance  to read it before it came out in print, but that means I got to read it during marathon week as a nice little escape. It totally delivered and scratched that nice little chick lit itch that I had!

My rating: 3.5 stars

Summary from goodreads:

After being together for ten years, Sylvie and Dan have all the trimmings of a happy life and marriage; they have a comfortable home, fulfilling jobs, beautiful twin girls, and communicate so seamlessly, they finish each other's sentences. However, a trip to the doctor projects they will live another 68 years together and panic sets in. They never expected "until death do us part" to mean seven decades.

In the name of marriage survival, they quickly concoct a plan to keep their relationship fresh and exciting: they will create little surprises for each other so that their (extended) years together will never become boring. But in their pursuit to execute Project Surprise Me, mishaps arise and secrets are uncovered that start to threaten the very foundation of their unshakable bond. When a scandal from the past is revealed that question some important untold truths, they begin to wonder if they ever really knew each other after all.

October in Review

Total Miles:  101.01 down from 184.49 miles last month. 79.8 miles last October. I'm pretty impressed I hit 100! 

Total Time:  17:01:33 down from 31:26:46. 

Total Runs: 15 runs for an average of 6.73 miles/run.

Highest weekly mileage: 

Race week of course: 

10/1/2018 – 10/7/2018:	43.8 mi	7:13:12	9:54 / m

Most hardcore run: I did a speed session with Kristin on Halloween. My first (and only) workout after TCM!

Favorite run: Twin Cities Marathon. I feel like 26.2 miles shouldn't be fun, but I really spent almost the entire 4h and 19 minutes grinning from ear to ear.

Favorite Race: Twin Cities Marathon

Favorite Jam: Eminem's Til I collapse came on with2 miles to go at TCM, and I listened to it on repeat. I give most of the credit to my speed in that last mile to Eminem.

Crazy Post Marathon Ideas

On the drive home from the Twin Cities Marathon, we spent a lot of time talking about our races (duh). And it didn't take too long into the drive for the wheels in my brain to start turning. And to think about another marathon.

Perhaps a redemption marathon.

My next scheduled race is the Dallas Half Marathon on December 9th. Last spring I signed up thinking that I'd have a monster endurance base after TCM and a short cycle with some extra speed might lead to a speedier half marathon. Plus it's always nice to get out of South Dakota in the winter. 

But as I got to thinking, the more that I felt like TCM was like a 26.2 mile long run. My heart rate stayed nice and comfy because I wasn't able to open up and really run hard due to the stomach/side cramping. I thought that maybe I could recover and do a VERY short marathon cycle.

So the past few weeks I've taken very easy. Probably focusing on recovery better than I ever have before after a marathon. I know my odds of training for another marathon in such a short time hinges on recovering to the best of my abilities first.

I have a plan that gets me from now until race day, and the option to switch to the full marathon basically at any time (the race crew confirmed as such when I was nervous about pulling the trigger quite so soon). I was worried if I changed but still felt really tired and extra labored on long runs, I'd be forced stick with 26.2 even if my body, heart, and/or mind weren't in it. Luckily I can wait!

So barring any crazy disasters (knocks vigorously on wood) I'll be lining up for one last 26.2 miles in 2018. I really hope that I can have another attempt at proving where my fitness is over the marathon distance this year. I worked incredibly hard for Twin Cities and really thought I would hit the 4:02-4:05 range. I thought on a rough day, I'd still snag that sub 4:12 for a PR. So I'm really hopeful that I can have another crack at that in just a handful of weeks. Gulp.