Maintenance Training Week 5

Week of June 19-25

Monday: My BRF was FINALLY back in town. So we met up for some warm up miles before the weekly Parks and Rec 5k race. We got in two miles, the 3.01 of the race (it's a short course) followed by the slowest one mile cool down in all of the land. It felt like a brick mile.

There was a large group of SFWR at the race. YAY!

Tuesday: I got to the group run early to get in a leisurely 3 mile shake out run. It was finally cooler temps and my body was loving it! I did two miles of walk/run with the group before a 30 minute yin yoga class. Yay stretching.

Wednesday: I did a sweltering 3 miles with Toni at the group run. I texted her earlier in the week that maybe we could do a speedier/tempo-like run on Wednesday. And then some storms rolled through and it was 93 degrees with a million percent humdity. So a slow slog it was. Followed by some yoga.

Thursday: I went back and forth about a trail run or a rest day, finally opting at the last minute for a rest day. I had run 4 days in a row, so I thought I'd be smart and treat my body to an epsom bath instead of a run.

Friday: 60 minutes of POWER. I had planned to do 3 miles afterward but I jacked up my back pretty severely during POWER. And it got worse and worse throughout the day. By far the worst back pain I've ever had. I took an epsom bath immediately after POWER, took ibuprofen, used my myofascial release balls on my low back to release some of the tension, and I was still dyyyyying. Luckily my friend was able to get me in for an emergency massage right after work, which helped. An any icy hot back patch immediately after I got home. Ahhhh.

Saturday: I was still in pretty rough shape Saturday morning but had to teach yoga, so I modified class a bit so that my body could demo most of it as necessary. The yoga helped loosen up my back, but I was still a ways from normal.

Sunday: My back was still pretty tight, so I took another day off from running. Womp. I took a 60 minute slow flow yoga class followed by a 75 minute restorative yoga class.

Total Mileage: 14 miles.

Off Season Ish

The other night, I pulled out my  Faster Road Racing: 5K to Half Marathon book to draw up my next training program. I have my half on May 13th, and then I'll be racing a few local 5ks en route to a 10k on the 4th of July. My fall training cycle will start about a week later. I've been loving having a training program again (even though it stresses me out a bit because it's INTENSE).

I started working on my plan, and I realized I wasn't feeling it. My training program for Brookings was 12 weeks long. That's probably 6 weeks longer than I've trained for a race in YEARS. And I did an 8 week base building plan leading up to the higher mileage training program. SO if you think about it that way, I've basically spent the last 5 months training for this race. *gulp*

I plan to do the same 12 week training program for my fall session, so to keep from burning out, I'm going to go plan-less.

Eeps!

I'll take a week off after Brookings, and my favorite yoga teachers are opening a yoga + cycling studio on May 1, and I'm desperate to get back on my yoga mat and sneak in some cycling! I hope to run 3 times a week, but it'll be with less structure than I am doing currently. I told my running buddy she could have an 8 week break from running #allthemiles with me, and she was excited to get back into the pool and dive (see what I did there?) into some triathlons, so I think we're both needing a little break.

I hope to keep a long run of 6-8 miles, and I'm loving the speed sessions, but there's a 5k every Monday night in June, and I want to race ALL OF THEM, which makes for a wonky set of training. So we'll see what transpires!

Hopefully a little mental and physical break will have me chomping at the bit to start a new training program mid-July (which may or may not already be completely drafted up for a goal race in which I haven't even entered the lottery for... nbd).