Weekly Training Recap

Monday I took a rest day. Starting off the week strong! Lolz.

Tuesday I took advantage of the sunny skies and did a general aerobic run on rolling hills. I shocked myself when I looked down for the first time and saw a sub 10 pace on my watch. I don't think I've run sub 10 on a run that didn't have speed work in it.... for a while. So that was fun.

Wednesday I hit the track with Jenn J. I was nervous that my legs would be tired from the day before's run. We had 6x800 on the schedule since we slacked the previous week. Recap: I ran 8:02-8:10 paces for two and felt like my legs were going to fall off they were so heavy. Recovered? Nope.

We did our mile warm up and both of us commented that we didn't have much pep in our step. Uff. We did our stretches and I did some booty activation exercises (<--I will henseforth refer to them as such, because, lolz, sounds like a super hero move, Captain Booty, ACTIVATE!) I planned to run the first one at or around 8 minute pace, and then drop from there if my legs were feeling it.

Well, I guess my legs were feeling it.

3:55, 3:53, 3:50, 3:56, 3:50, 3:44. Avg. 3:51 (7:42 pace), whoop!

Alright then. Jenn stopped for a few seconds after each of our quarter mile jogs, allowing me to rabbit her, and that worked well, because I don't want to get caught! I'm hoping it won't be too long before her and I are running the same paces!

#stataholic

These paces are almost on par with a similar workout done in the spring of 2011 (yes, I clearly went back to check my log for this data) and the spring of 2011 was when I set most of my PRs. #comeback 

(#toomanyhashtagsforablogpost?)

All green. As you do when you hit the track, right?

Thursday I took a rest day.

Friday I had the day off for working Saturday so I set out for my long run after procrastinating most of the morning. As you do. The temps were cool and the wind was minimal. And it. was. awesome. I haven't had that strong of a long run in a really long time. It was actually at a faster pace than my first two halfs of this spring..... :/  I did 3 minute pickups every 20 minutes to keep things interesting and to keep my form engaged.

It's important to match your toenails to your running top.

My hat was soaked, even on a "cool" day. Somehow that didn't come across as well in the photo. :(

After the run I met up with some friends for some twofers. But not until I took a selfie to feature my new pug shirt and purty hairz.

If I was a pug, that's what I'd look like fyi.

Tom and Jeri! This picture makes me laugh.

And the best beer I've had in a really long time:  Deschutes Fresh Squeezed IPA. I may have spent a considerable amount of time calling around to liquor stores on Sunday to find somewhere that carried it. Spoiler: I didn't luck out. :(

Saturday I took a rest day and accidentally did Sunday too, unless you count eating Qdoba nachos as training, then I nailed it.

Very Special Date

......with the track.  Duh!  As I have mentioned before, I loooooved track back in the day.  I decided to break down and find a track to do my speedwork on for my workout Monday.  I've done some searching in the past, and everything within running distance is locked up tight.  I finally got the head's up from Joseph that there was a 4 lane track near-ish to where I lived.  Heck ya!  The funny thing is, I used to run by this track everyday when I first started running (it was on my regular running route) and always thought it was locked up tight.  Nada.

I had 5 miles to do with a one mile warm up and 8 x 400, with recovery jogs of 400 m. in between.  My goal pace for the 400's were 1:42-1:48 (6:48-7:12).  The weather was GORGEOUS.  We're talking low 60's, barely any humidity, crazy overcast, and a slight breeze.  This would've been perfect track meet weather back in the day. ;)  [btw, just went to insert a pic from high school track here for nostalgia sake and realized that facebook deleted the album of random HS pics.  A-holes. :(]

I did a nice warm up mile on the track, and quickly remembered why I hated running distance in track.  You want me to run how many laps?!?!?!  Haha, ok not quite that bad, but I definitely preferred to run 1/4 of the track or 1/2 of the track vs. 4 laps.  ;)  After the warm up I stretched really well and then got ready for some speed!

I started out a bit too fast on the first repeat, but didn't fade too much.  After the first couple of 400's, I felt the pace pretty easily and stopped looking at the pace on my Garmin altogether.  It's so much easier to get into a groove pace-wise when you're going fast.  After the 4th 400 I took a quick water break for a sip.  On #5 there was a guy who started 150-175 m. ahead of me, that I decided to chase down.  Heh, competitive little B.  The last lap I ran a really hard final 150 to see how fast I could get it done in.

I finished the 5 miles in 42:24 for a pace of 8:29.  My avg. pace for 400 was 1:40.  Maybe I'll move my goal pace up a little bit next time I do these. ;)

Recovery	1 Mi	9:37	9:37	9:37
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:39	11:16	6:36
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:20	13:36	9:20
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:42	15:18	6:48
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:25	17:43	9:40
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:41	19:24	6:44
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:29	21:53	9:56
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:48	23:41	7:12
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:26	26:07	9:44
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:37	27:44	6:28
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:21	30:05	9:24
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:39	31:44	6:36
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:28	34:12	9:52
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:41	35:53	6:44
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:33	38:26	10:12
Interval	0.25 Mi	1:33	39:59	6:12
Recovery	0.25 Mi	2:25	42:24	9:40

I really wanted to take some sweet pictures of my new love, but there were quite a few people walking/jogging/rollerblading w/their dogs (wtf?), so I felt silly.  Good thing I see there being many many more dates to come!

The best part of the track is that it's totally bike-able distance from my apartment, just not tonight as I a Mexican food date with one of my best guy friends from college.  I think I'm in looooooooooove.*

*With the track, for clarification purposes. ;)

Tough as Nails* (Take 2!)

*Wherein this time, the title is in fact referring to me ME and not the workout!  Heck yes.

This morning I had my scariest workout for all of my marathon training:  10 miles with 8 at a tempo pace of 8:44.  If you recall from a couple weeks ago, I totally failed at life for the last tempo run, by not fueling or hydrating properly.  I normally do my speedwork on Tuesdays, but I'm switching around my schedule this week.  Long run is going to be Friday at lunch (I'm off early, whoo!) then off to see the boy.  As I had learned my lesson last time on my 18 miler, thou shall not complete speedwork and long run in close proximity.  Can't get much further away from Friday then Monday, right?

Fuel!  I drug myself out of bed early, ugh,  just to eat, double ugh.  I had a big ol' bowl of cereal with a nanner.  After letting it settle, I headed out for my run.  My warm up mile was a smidge too fast, but no big deal, right?  Once the warm up mile was behind me, I started in on tempo mile #1.  After trucking along at what I "thought" was my tempo pace, I looked down at the Garmin:  8:10.  Uhh...whoops.  For some reason my brain thinks that tempo equates to hard, when 8:44 pace should be just slightly faster than my normal pace that I've been running lately.  That definitely did NOT compute.

Around the 2 mile tempo point, I came up on a couple that were just starting that appeared to be running in the 8:30-8:40 range.  Perfect-o.  You will be my rabbits until my turn around point!  Drat!  Shoe tying.  I almost stop as well, because why give up the perfect pacers right?  The guy told me to go ahead.  I told him we were running almost the same pace, so I'd take my turn pacing for awhile.  Turns out I do better with being chased than I do when chasing.

1. 9:23 (warm up)

2. 8:38
3. 8:29
4. 8:28
5. 8:32

At the turn around, they kept going (come back!  It's your turn now!!) and I decided to really try to find this elusive tempo pace.  I also wished that I had packed a GU, I could've used a little extra somethin' somethin' at this point.

6. 8:39

7. 8:46
8. 8:48
9. 8:10

I knew I wasn't close to my tempo pace on the last mile, but I always give it everything I have at the end of speedwork sessions, just feels good to go fast sometimes, right?  And then I had a lovely cool down mile.  When I got home, I quickly calculated my pace for my 8 tempo miles 8:33, whoohoo!  My HM pace is 8:34....makes me want to run another one, ASAP.  Since I was rushing off to work, I never looked at the final mile time, assuming it was 9:30ish.

When I got to work and uploading my info into my running log on Runnersworld.com, I was shocked to see that my cool down mile was 8:38!  Almost spot ON what my tempo pace was.  Seriously?  Go figure.  So despite the insanely sporadic splits, I ended up with 9 tempo miles (without realizing it) at a 8:34 pace.

Total run:  10 miles in 1:26:36 for a pace of 8:40.

After talking it over with my office husband (yes, we haven't divorced...yet.  Although he have joked about how many more calories we're going to burn by walking SO FAR to visit each other; God we're nerds) this is my first tempo run of MARATHON TRAINING that hasn't been done on a treadmill.  Plus, it'll be awhile before I need to hit that pace, since the marathon is just going to be done at "whatever pace gets me to the finish line without dying."  And that's in no way going to be 8:44 pace. ;)

I found this picture when I was back home yesterday for Easter.  This is during my 8th grade year (my final year running distance, thank God) at the regional track meet (the meet before the state meet).  I'm in the green (of course), and I literally spent the whole season chasing that chick in blue in front of me.  She was a year behind me, and of course competed in the same events as me in the Varsity and Jr. High track meets.  I'm from a small school, so if you were good enough you could run for the Varsity team, which means I got out of a TON of school in the spring, heck ya!  (Check out that forward lean, you can bet we were running into some STRONG wind, all 100 lbs of me. :p)

Anyways, back to the race.  This was the 1600 m. (the mile) and it was my favorite distance.  I loved being able to judge a competitors stride to determine how tired they were, and when to make my move.  That was the only thing I enjoyed about distance running.  :p  I much preferred the sprinting where I could just run all out for 13 or 27 seconds (depending on the race 100 m. vs. 200 m.) and be done.  Call me lazy.  I think I got 4th or 5th in this race (no I didn't beat girl in blue).  I did find my diary when I was at home with some race times listed in it, and at the beginning of this season I was running ~6:30, and my PR was 6:17.  Not sure if that was this race or not.  Ok, memory lane over.  Carry on with your lives.