Reflecting on the Training Cycle

Leading up to the Brookings half marathon, I really thought our training cycle had been an A+. When I was weeks from the Twin Cities 10 mile, I started doing some comparisons of that cycle vs this one to get my brain to that place mentally to prove I could hit my goal times. I was astounded to see so many missed runs, especially early on in training. Essentially I did an 8 week base building schedule followed by a 12 week training plan, so it makes sense that some runs would be missed over a 5 month span :P but still. The 4-5 weeks leading up to Brookings were stellar so maybe that's where the skewed perception came from.

From January to race day in Brookings, I ran about 359 miles. In those miles, I ran 7 long runs (10+ miles consecutively), including 2 half marathon races. One raced, one done as a long run. I had three 20-24 mileage weeks, three 25-29 mileage weeks, and two 30-34 mile weeks. In these weeks I averaged 18.73 miles/week. I ran just over 100 miles during the month of April with 104 miles, otherwise my monthly mileage ranged from 41-90. I averaged 77 miles/month.

Our TC10 training started mid-July. From July until race day, I ran about 378 miles. Slightly more mileage, but in 2.5 months less time! I ran 11 long runs (including 8 milers as our plan had us starting with 8's for a ten mile training cycle). Additionally I ran another 8 runs of 8-10 miles for mid-week distances, for 19 long runs over that period of time! I had five 20-24 mile weeks, one 25-29 mile weeks, four 30-34 mile weeks, two 35-39 mile weeks, and one 40+ week. I averaged almost 32 miles/week.
I ran over 100 miles for July, August, and September ranging from 112-141 miles for those hot and sweaty months. Barf. I averaged 125.68 miles per month.

	Brookings	TC10
20-24/week	3	6
25-29/week	3	1
30-34/week	2	4
35-39/week	0	2
40+/week	0	1

Leading up to the half in Massachusetts in November, I didn't really follow a plan; I raced a lot of 3 miles and a 5k, so there was a lot of speed work, and just one long run of 11 miles. Despite not really training specifically for the half marathon distance, and just getting in miles, I still ran 10 seconds per mile faster than I did for the Brookings race in May.

Looking back at these training cycles, it's clear that the more mileage I do, on as consistent basis as possible is what sets me up best for success on race day. One of my big goals for 2018 is to not skip long runs! It's the one run a week that I can find 100 excuses for. But as 2017 was wrapping up, I really found myself looking forward to them. Perhaps I'm turning over a new leaf. Stay tuned!

Hill Cramming

In June, prior to starting to train for the Twin Cities 10 Miler (actually before we even got in to the lottery for the race) I re-read my blog post from 2010, and was reminded of how hilly the route was. I sent a panicked text to Toni that there were ZOMG HILLS in the TC10 and I suck at hills, and I was going to die.

She calmly replied that we'd make sure to integrate all the hill running into our training. Because she's smart. And knows exactly what to say to calm the crazy. We had a lot of endurance runs with 100 meter pick ups in them, as well as ones with 12 second hill repeats.

But as I was driving to work this week, I thought to myself, "self, have you been doing diligent hill work as promised?" and my answer was, "shit, no!" So we're 2 weeks out from the race, and I know you can't cram train for a race, but can you hill cram for a race? Because I'm going to try.

We're going to pick hillier routes for our last two long runs, which should be easy since the bike trail (my beloved flat bike path where I don't have to worry about stopping at stop lights and getting hit by vehicles) is under construction. We also do a hilly route with the group run on Wednesday nights, so we might do 3.5-4 miles with the group instead of the usual 3 to take advantage of the hilly parts, and taking a hillier route during our regular runs from the library. Eeps.

So hill cramming. TBD if that works out or if we should've started in June AS PREVIOUSLY DISCUSSED. This will serve as a reminder for next year when we're doing the marathon instead of the ten miler. Mark my words (and someone actually remind me in June, please).

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 7

Week of August 21-27

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles
Monday Actual: Since I did my long run Sunday, I wanted to do this as a recovery run. And my legs felt like garbage. Thank goodness Kyle joined me on his bike, because I would've bagged the run at .18 miles it felt so crappy. I managed to go 3.25 miles and that was plenty. It was so humid and my body felt like crap. Did I mention how crappy it felt?

I did get some kisses from this beauty after. So it was totally worth it.

Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic 6 miles 
Tuesday Actual: Toni and I met up for 3 miles before the group run and the Ale joined us for the next 3 miles. They were fairly uneventful except that my legs still felt pretty crappy. I need to sleep for like six days. Not sure where that fits in my schedule though.....

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 6x12 sec uphill, 6x100

Wednesday Actual: 

Thursday Planned:   LT 9 miles, 36 minutes at tempoThursday Actual: It was the anniversary of my mom's passing, so I took a couple of vacation days from work. I planned to go with Toni after work, and I was just exhausted. Felt like I could sleep for days, so I opted to bail on the run, knowing I couldn't make up the miles later in the week. Womp.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4
Friday Actual: I planned to do the coffee run with Toni and I either had a alarm malfunction or I shut off of my alarm and went back to bed. I slept until almost 10am. So tired.

Saturday Planned: Rest + High Vibe Yoga Festival (so uh... I guess not really a rest day :P)
Saturday Actual: All the yoga, omg. I did 5 yoga classes, totally 7.5 hours of yoga. I was pooped, and my hamstrings were so tight and mad at me.

Sunday Planned: Endurance 12, increase pace, last 3 miles at LT: 605 Series 12 mile
Sunday Actual: Uh.... DNF 12 mile race series and long run. We got home at 10:30pm on Saturday night. I took some ibuprofen because my hamstrings were so tight and achy, I laid out my stuff and went to bed. They were still really tight when I woke up, but I figured they'd warm up as I was running. The first few steps were super painful. My immediate thoughts were that this might be my first DNF. I told myself to run 3 miles without even giving that further thought. We were going slow, but it was just a long run with a finish line, so if we took out the workout portion and just got in the miles, we were both a-ok with that. Around 3.5 miles I realized that my legs weren't loosening and that my form was getting really chopping, especially on the right side. I let Toni know that I was going to leave her once we circled back to the finish line. Honestly, if I hadn't bailed on Toni for so many of our runs for this week, I would've skipped the run this morning in hopes that some foam rolling in the morning could allow it to happen later in the evening. But I wasn't willing to really injure myself for my fall goal races just to complete a 12 mile long run. Next week is a new week with a whole lot less emotions and feelings, so fingers crossed my body bounces back asap! New rule: no yoga festivals if you're spending all your free time running all the miles and not doing all the yoga. Duuuuuuuuh.

Total Mileage Planned: 43 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  

605 Series 8 Mile Race Goals

I was hesitant to sign up for the 605 Race Series, because I knew I wouldn't race any of the distances other than the 4 mile. Toni convinced me that we'd do the 8 mile and 12 mile as our training runs together, and our finishing time would be NBD. Thank goodness for Toni, right?

Sunday's 8 mile will be a part of our 11 mile long run for the day. According to the Pfitz plan we're following, we're supposed to increase our long run pace, finishing the last 3 miles near Lactate Threshold pace. Uff da! Our LT pace lately has been between 9-9:20. Our long run pace has been creepily 10:39 almost every week no matter the distance or temperature/humidity or if I'm running with Toni or solo. So weird.

Our plan:

To run 3 miles at our regular pace before the race, with minimal time between those miles and the gun start. I think we'll continue another 2-3 miles at our regular long run pace, with another 2 around 9:30-10 pace, and the final three around, or slightly above 9 minute pace.

Last year I ran the race in 1:16:03, a pace of 9:49. Apparently my race plan was similar last year (I had to look up my race report to be sure): race plan 2 @10:30, 2 @ 10, 2 @ 9:30 2 @ 9-9:15.

I would love for my time/pace to be faster than last year's especially as it's at the end of an 11 miler, but we'll see! Since it's more of a workout vs. a race like last year's was, I'm just excited to get out and run with a bunch of 605 runner friends!

Twin Cities 10 Mile Training Week 1

Week of July 10-16

Monday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 6 miles 8x100 strides
Monday Actual: 6 miles with 8x100 strides.
When my alarm went off in the morning, I silenced it, rolling back over to sleep. I hoped that I wouldn't regret this decision after work. Luckily for me, we had the heat after work, but the humidity had dropped significantly. It was 84 degrees with only 50% humidity, so it felt amazing out. We had a snafu at work that caused me to stay later, so I started running at 6:15pm, so I was STARVING throughout the run and thought I was going to die during the final mile and a half. Uff. Mental note: time to start stashing snacks at work for pre-run fuel again. 6 miles done!

Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic 5 miles 
Tuesday Actual: 3 miles.

I met up with Sarah for our group run from Revolution. We got in 3 miles followed by 30 minutes of yoga. I had planned to go out for two more after but didn't. Oops. The humidity was just shy of 100%, so despite it being at a nice easy comfortable pace, we kept describing the humidity as "gaspy."

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 3 miles
Wednesday Actual: 3 miles.

I got in my 3 miles with Bob during the group run at 605. It was so incredibly hot and humid.

Thursday Planned: LT 7 miles, 2x12 min with 4 min jogs in between 
Thursday Actual: LT 7 miles.
My BRF is back! And it's our one year friendivarsary! We met up for our first workout of the training cycle. We ran a mile to meet up, then another warm up mile together, followed by our LT miles, a cool down mile together and a solo cool down mile by ourselves. The LT miles were HARD. It was so humid out. But it felt pretty badass going on with the rest of my workday after accomplishing a challenging run! And BRF miles are always great. 

Friday Planned: Sanford POWER
Friday Actual: Rest. As I was logging my miles in my training log, I realized that I hadn't taken a rest day since a week ago Wednesday. Uff. I knew if I did POWER I'd need to do a couple of miles shake out so I could do my long run Saturday, and I knew I couldn't move my long run, so I skipped POWER, and slept in instead.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 10 miles
Saturday Actual: 10 miles!
The real feel temp for Saturday was projected at 103 degrees, so I was up at 5:30am to get ready for our long run. We got started at 6:40am and it was so incredibly humid. I was sweaty just getting my stuff gathered before we took off! My first mile was really heavy tired legs, but then things shook out and before we knew it we were at the 5 mile turn around! Mile 6 was rough, but after we got water refills at mile 7 I felt like a whole new woman, and we were able to pick up the pace the last few miles without picking up the effort level.

We managed to run a slightly faster pace this week than last week, running 2 miles further, in much hotter and humid conditions. WIN!

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: I had two miles remaining for the week, so I opted to do a super easy shake out run before it heated up too much. I kept it super easy.

Total Mileage Planned: 31 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  31 miles. This is one of the highest mileage weeks I've had in forever! I went back through my log and I hit 31 miles and 36 miles during my training cycle for Brookings, so I think this training cycle is off to a good start!