Twin Cities 10 Training Week 12

Week of September 25-October 1

Monday Planned: Race pace + speed 7 miles 4x100, 2 miles @ 10k pace
Monday Actual: Unplanned rest day. We were celebrating our anniversary in the evening, and I could not make myself get out of bed to do the run. My stomach was super upset all night. Oops. oh well. 

Tuesday Planned: Recovery 3 miles 
Tuesday Actual: Another rest day. I had every intention of doing Monday's run Tuesday morning, and it just didn't happen. Oh well.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles  
Wednesday Actual: General Aerobic 3.5 miles with the group run aka with Toni. Chris joined us toward the end. I didn't look at the pace at all but it ended up SPEEDY.

Thursday Planned: POWER + Recovery 5 miles  
Thursday Actual: POWER + General Aerobic 5 miles. For some reason my legs were super tired after POWER, so my glutes (lol my MacBook autocorrected to gluten) weren't firing at all, causing some over striding and IT band discomfort. Barf, not ideal for race week. I finally stopped around mile 4 and did some glute activation leg lifts which helped a lot. Followed by some foam rolling when I got home.


Friday Planned: Rest
Friday Actual: Recovery 3 miles with the coffee run. We kept it super easy and it was awesome to run on a nice chilly morning. The coffee after is always a plus.

Saturday Planned: Recovery 3 Miles 4x100
Saturday Actual: Recovery 3 Miles along the 10k/5k course. All the hills.

Sunday Planned: Twin Cities 10 Mile Race
Sunday Actual: Twin Cities 10 Mile Race, except I suck at tangents so I hit 10.11 miles. Race report to come soon!!

Total Mileage Planned: 32 miles
Total Mileage Actual: 26.4 miles,  which is suspiciously close to a marathon. But like... over 5 days instead of 4-5 hours.

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 11

Week of September 18-24

Monday Planned: 6 miles, 2 mile warm up, 5k, 1 mile cool down
Monday Actual: 2 mile warm up, 5k race (slightly short) and skipped the cool down mile as I had to dash to book club!

Tuesday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Tuesday Actual: 

Wednesday Planned:VO2 Max 8 miles, 2x1200, 2x1000, 1x800 @ 3k-5k pace
Wednesday Actual: 3 miles with the group at 605. 60 minute yoga class and then we went to the track for 5 miles including 2x1200, 2x1000, 1x800 @ 3k-5k pace. All intervals were sub 8 place. It was my best track workout of the session. Wahoo!

Thursday Planned: POWER + Rest
Thursday Actual: Rest. I woke up for POWER and then reset my alarm and went back to sleep.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Friday Actual: 4 recovery miles at the coffee run with Toni and Kristin! Then all the coffee!! FREE SHOT FRIIIIIIIDAAYYYYYYYY!

Saturday Planned: Endurance 9 miles
Saturday Actual: Long run 9 miles with Toni. So very humid. Uff da.

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Rest day!

Total Mileage Planned: 31 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  30.4 miles

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 10

Week of September 11-17

Monday Planned: Recovery 3 miles
Monday Actual: Two mile recovery run. Kyle came out on his bike and kept me company. My calves were super tight, so I stopped to stretch a million times.

Tuesday Planned:  General Aerobic + Speed 5 miles 2 sets 4x150m strides
Tuesday Actual: Rest. I slept for ten hours and skipped my run. I did spend some significant time foam rolling and doing core work.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 7 miles 
Wednesday Actual: General Aerobic 7 miles + yoga. I got in 3.5 miles before the group run with Chris, and another 3.5 with the group followed by yoga.

Thursday Planned: POWER + LT 8 miles, 36 min tempo 
Thursday Actual: POWER + Rest. My stomach was angry. There was no way I could do a hard workout, in the heat wave with that terrible stomachache. Uff.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 miles 
Friday Actual: LT 8 miles, 36 min tempo. I had the day off on Friday but skipped the coffee run because I thought Toni had overslept. Luckily she was free to do our missed tempo run after supper. I can't believe how early it's getting dark already! :'(

Saturday Planned: Rest
Saturday Actual: 4.14 miles shakeout run. Just a few hours after the evening's tempo run. Had planned for 5 but cut it early.

Sunday Planned: Endurance 11 miles
Sunday Actual: Hilly long run 11 miles. We hit all of the hills on this long run to prep for TC10!

Total Mileage Planned: 37 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  32.24 miles

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 9

Week of September 4-10

Monday Planned: Recovery 5 Miles 
Monday Actual: 5 recovery miles with Toni in the evening. I had terrible heartburn during most of the run so I was super thankful it was just a recovery run. Woof.

Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 2 sets 6x100 
Tuesday Actual: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 2 sets 6x100. I really hoped that Toni was going to sleep in and skip this run so I could also sleep in and skip this run. But she didn't, and neither did I and it was awesome to get 8 miles done before the sun was barely up. And you can't quite see it, but it was 48 degrees on that sign. Yessssss.

Wednesday Planned: VO2 Max 9 miles, 5x1200 @ 3k-5k pace
Wednesday Actual: VO2 Max 9 miles, 5x1200 @ 3k-5k pace Track work! We did 3 miles at the group run, nice and easy paced. Yoga class, then headed to the track for our workout. Similar workout to two weeks ago, but +200m for each of the repeats. Felt great!

Thursday Planned: POWER + Recovery 4 Miles
Thursday Actual: Recovery 3.25 miles with the 605 beer run. Literally ran to pick up our sushi orders and brought them back to listen to some OG runners give a panel discussion.

Friday Planned: General Aerobic 4 Miles
Friday Actual: Rest. I slept in and skipped our recovery run. Sorry Toni!

Saturday Planned: Rest
Saturday Actual: General Aerobic 4.4 Miles + 60 minute yoga class. I taught yoga and then planned to do a recovery run right after, but I had drama with my race bib and didn't end up doing my shake out run until 4 or 5pm and I was starvvvvvving.

Sunday Planned: Endurance 13.1, last 3 miles at LT: Sioux Falls Half Marathon 
Sunday Actual: Sioux Falls Half Marathon! (race report to come!)

Total Mileage Planned: 43 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  43.08 miles--PEAK WEEK COMPLETE!

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 8

Week of August 28-September 3

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles
Monday Actual: Rest day. Still some residual hamstring tightness so I erred on the side of caution.

Tuesday Planned:  General Aerobic + Speed 6 miles 2 sets 4x150m strides
Tuesday Actual: General Aerobic 6 miles. Opted to skip the strides to be on the safe side. Legs felt about 90% better.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 3 miles 
Wednesday Actual: 3.5 Miles with the group run at 605 Running Co. I had hoped to do 8 miles to make up for some of the miles, some before yoga some after, but that didn't happen. AND *gasp* we forgot to take a running selfie. Ugh. So sad.

Thursday Planned: LT 9 miles, 36 minutes at tempo
Thursday Actual: LT 9 miles, 36 minutes at tempo, it was hot and humid but we did it and did it well! 3 miles warm up, 4 miles at tempo, and 2 miles cool down. Major confidence boost.




Friday Planned: Recovery 3 miles
Friday Actual: Recovery 4 miles. I met up with the coffee run with the hopes of doing 3-4 miles depending on how my legs felt after doing the tempo run about 10 hours earlier. They felt great. I kept it nice and slow but got in an easy 4.

Saturday Planned: GA 3-5 miles.
Saturday Actual: We stayed at Kyle's parents' cabin on Friday night and Ollie was being really weird and wouldn't sleep and then she got sick in the middle of the night. I think I maybe slept 20 minutes. So tired. It was the perfect day for a run too.

Sunday Planned: Endurance 12 miles
Sunday Actual: Ugh. Kyle brought his bike up to our camper to be my bike sherpa Sunday morning, and it did not happen. I barely slept yet again, and despite not having run since Friday morning, I could feel massive knots in my calves, and didn't bring any of my torture devices along to rectify the situation. 

Total Mileage Planned: 36 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  22.58 miles.

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 6

Week of August 14-20

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 5 miles 
Monday Actual: 5 Miles with Toni in the morning before work. Ran a mile to meet up, 3 miles together and a mile home that fest like it took six years to complete. We ran in the most eerie foggy murder setting type weather EVER. Glad we survived.




Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 2 sets 6x100 strides
Tuesday Actual: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles with strides. I think we were 2 short on the strides. My stomach got a little wonky, so we skipped a couple to allow my stomach to chill out a bit. We were treated with the most glorious sunrise, and none of us had our cameras on the run. Fail.

Wednesday Planned: VO2 Max 8 miles 5x1000 @ 3k-5k
Wednesday Actual: 3 miles with the group run, followed by my yoga class, then Toni and I hit the road for some track work. We had a half mile warm up followed by 5x1000m repeats with a quarter of a mile recovery jog in between. Most of mine were closer to 3k pace than 5k pace, and after the run I checked the stats for the last time I did this workout and was shocked to see that my paces were 20-30 SECONDS FASTER than this spring. Wahoo!

Thursday Planned: General Aerobic 4 miles  
Thursday Actual: I opted for a rest day. My legs had a lot of miles on them and I needed a break. Plus I was single-pug-moming it, so it was hard to find time to do it.

Friday Planned: Sanford POWER 
Friday Actual: Sanford POWER + General Aerobic 4 miles. Our final POWER session of this cycle, and now we have three weeks off. Let's all hope on all hopes that I don't get injured in the next 3 weeks, k? After the lift, I went out and ran 4 super easy miles. My legs still felt heavy from the speedwork and the lift so I just got them moving.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 11 miles
Saturday Actual: Rest day. We were going to flip flop our long run and recovery run, but I was so exhausted after work that I wanted to rest instead. So we decided to go longer on the long run day.

Sunday Planned: Recovery 5 miles
Sunday Actual: Endurance 14 miles. Uff. Some crazy lady thought we should go further for our long run since we missed a few miles. I thought that we didn't get a chance to do 14 in our training plan, and last spring I bailed on ours because I felt so terrible. It was so humid. But we made it through and it was a good mental toughness run. At 13.1 miles I realized that I was 3 minutes faster than last year's Sioux Falls half. And that was with a super rough morning. YAY!

Total Mileage Planned: 41 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  39.1 miles

Twin Cities 10 Training Week 3

Week of July 24-30

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 3 mile 
Monday Actual: I convinced Kyle to join me on then bike for an easy 3 mile run. I sucked planning my route and ended up at 3.1 miles and walking the last two blocks home. Hah.

Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 6x12 sec uphill, 6x100
Tuesday Actual: Toni and I met at 5am to get in 5 miles before the sun. We did our strides and our hill repeats, and my legs felt like garbage. We met up with Ale at the group run for an additional 3 miles.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 3 mile Wednesday Actual: Easy 3 miles at the group run at 605 with Bobby. It was warm, but nothing like it has been lately. After the run we had a yoga session with a glorious legs up the wall.

Thursday Planned: Endurance 11 miles
Thursday Actual: Rest day. I didn't have to go into work until 12:30pm on Friday so I swapped my long run to Friday and took a glorious rest day on Thursday.

Friday Planned: Sanford POWER
Friday Actual: Sanford POWER and 11 endurance miles. It was my first time back at POWER in 3 weeks. Woof. It was awesome and hard, and the sun was gorgeous when we were done.

Toni was sick, so I set out for 11 solo miles. The first 3 miles were a struggle, but I took my first GU around mile 3, found a bathroom, and my legs loosened up dramatically. My left knee felt a little wonky during some of the miles, so I really focused on running tall. My watch was being weird and not telling me mile lap times, so I was pleasantly surprised when I finished to see my time and pace.

Saturday Planned: General Aerobic 3 mile 
Saturday Actual: Rest.
:( I woke up to some super tight IT bands. I attempted to foam roll (3 times), stick, epsom bath, drinking all the water, napping.

Sunday Planned: 8 miles, 4 at LT (605 Series 4 Miles)
Sunday Actual: Rest. Again. My IT bands were still so ridiculously tight that I knew that running would cause my knee to hurt (been there done that). Another rest day, more foam rolling. :(

Total Mileage Planned: 36 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  25.1 miles

Twin Cities 10 Lottery Results

Last spring, it was decided that Toni and I would enter the lottery for the Twin Cities 10 mile. We're both doing the Twin Cities Marathon in 2018 (my first in 4 years, her first EVER) and I thought it would be really cool to do the 10 mile the year prior, both to get to experience the excitement of the race, cheer on all our SFWR friends doing the full, and also get a reminder of what the last 8 miles of the marathon are, because they're some challenging miles!

It was decided. I took vacation time from work, I booked us a super expensive hotel at the finish line that has a shuttle to the race start. So then we waited until July 7. And waited. And waited. All along, just knowing and expecting to get in.

Finally the last day for lottery registrations was upon us, so the next morning I woke up checked my email and credit card report expecting to see a race fee/race confirmation and didn't see either. What? I looked closer at the website, and realized that lottery entries wouldn't be determined until Wednesday, the following day. Ugh.

Wednesday morning Toni and I were up super early to run. As soon as I got home, I again pulled up my email and credit card report expecting to see good news. Nope. Hmmm.... I had story times all morning at work, so I had Toni checking her email and texting me to alert me with good news. Nothing.

We have a group Facebook page for our running group, and a few of our friends started to post the they were in. Uh... nothing yet here. Shit. The email instructions said that the lotteries were being drawn on a rolling schedule that could take up to 8 hours, so I didn't panic.

Yet.

I worked a partial day on Wednesday because I was scheduled to work the weekend, and got in a glorious nap as I'd been getting up in the 4's most of the week to run. I woke up around 5:30pm and was devastated not to see an email. STILL. BUT there also wasn't a sorry to inform you email either, so there's still hope, right?

Around this time I started stalking all of the Medtronic TC 10 event posts on Facebook, and it appeared that many many other people still hadn't heard anything and their appeared to be some technical issues of people getting an email that they didn't get in, and then one that they did get in, groups of people who signed up as a team where some of them had heard they were in and others nothing. This all calmed my nerves slightly, but I still started looking closer at the Crazy Horse half, our back up plan, as well as lodging in the area.

I went to teach yoga, checked my email before, and immediately after class, and still nothing. At 8:06pm (class ends at 8pm) Toni called me. "Check your email!" Huh... I just had. "We got in!" I made her forward me the email as proof, as I still didn't have anything, and sure enough, an hour later I got my email too!

I'm so excited to take the shortcut to the capital in October! Because only crazy people would've put in 50 miles of training for a race that they're not even officially "in" for, right?