Race Report: Brookings Half Marathon

I woke up bright eyed and bushy tailed at 3:45am on Saturday ready to go for race day. For once, I slept well. And my stomach didn't seem to be too terribly angry for once. Wins! Toni and her husband picked me up at 4:50 and we were off! Driving through such terrible fog that I couldn't look at the window without getting dizzy from the lack of visibility. Woof.

We got to the race start with plenty of time to pick up our bibs, hit the restrooms, do my glute drills, and do a short warm up with strides. My legs felt a lot better than they had all week, and the temps were cool. I was pretty psyched to get going! My race plan was to take the first 3 miles easy at 9:15, followed by 5 at 8:45, and the last 5 as hard as I could. The temps were good and I was ready to run hard and see if I could run a time in the mid 1:50s.

We lined up near-ish the front, and I used my knowledge of the race course to know which side of the street to be on for the many many turns throughout the course. I'm always at least .1 over on this race, so I try to run tangents like a beast to minimize that. I checked in with my Garmin shortly into mile 1 and saw that I was running an 8:45 so I settled in a bit, ready to stick to the plan not to go out too fast so I could really take advantage of those later miles. Later in the mile I felt like I was running a peppy 9:15 and was closer to a 9:35. I knew that mile two was a gradual downhill and mile three was gradual uphill so I opted to try to run closer to "feel" than spot on pace. Note to future Jeri: planning to run this race in pace sections doesn't work as almost every other mile is slight uphill followed by slight downhill. Additional side note: running by feel is hard.

The first few miles felt okay, but I was surprised that I didn't feel like I was holding back. Which made me feel nervous. My heart rate was higher than it typically would be at these paces, and the humidity was having me breathe much harder than my effort was necessitating. Ugh, and the snot. It just wouldn't be the Brookings half without an obnoxious cold to be snotting my way through. 

1. 9:25

2. 9:14

3. 9:39

I was excited to dig into the quicker miles starting with mile 4. I was also excited to be running on mostly flat for the next few miles before we had some more gradual inclines coming up. I passed a few people during the pick up of pace and then shortly there after was a relay exchange and people started flying by me.

4. 9:11

5. 9:22

6. 9:08

There was a long gradual uphill that started during mile 6 at 6.67 (yes I did go through my previous race profiles and notate the length of the uphills to study prior to the race so I couldn't convince myself DURING the race that "this incline is going to last forever!!" nope, it will stop, eventually :P). I tried to pick it up in the small decline leading up to that, and was still fairly pleased with where I was at during the halfway mark of the race. My average pace was 9:20, and while I knew I didn't have 8:40s in me to finish out the race at a 9 pace, I didn't feel terrible and thought I could run 9s to the finish. Somehow that math in my head had me running about the same time as the 605 half. That math is wrong, btw.

After the mile uphill from 6.6-7.6 I was feeling a bit tired but still ready to turn it up the final five miles of the race. I knew that there was just 1.25 of uphill running left and I was ready to run hard for the final five miles. 

7. 9:01

8. 9:31

I kept pushing harder, but my times were staying the same, and my heart rate was just climbing and climbing. Somewhere after the big uphill through the park at mile 9 I recalculated my finishing time and discovered I would need to run insanely fast, all out, 120% to finish the race in 2:02. Ugh. It was around this time that I decided to pull back the effort level to a long run pace. My justification, at the time, and one I'm still ok with several days out from the race, is that I have another half in 5 weeks and if I didn't care whether I got a 2:02 or a 2:08, why not set myself up for less recovery time leading up to the next one.

Ok then. 

For the last 4 miles I tried to pretend that Toni was running along side me on a bad long run day. I tried to imagine all the complaints I would throw her way and all the fun stories she'd tell me to take my mind off of how bad the run was sucking. Despite slowing down, my heart rate really wasn't coming down much, so I still felt like I was working really hard, which was even more annoying!

9. 9:39

10. 10:12

I knew miles 11 and 13 were downhill and mile 12 was an uphill, so I just enjoyed the reprieve on mile 11. When the half and full split off I felt really alone, especially with the uphill of mile 12 staring me in the face. I took a tiny walk break at the start of mile 12 and another at the top to take a water and a Powerade. My hands and fingers were so swollen, I was really wishing I had brought more than one salt pill with, and I rarely drink anything but water during a race but I thought my body was probably needing it. I was drenched in sweat and could taste the salt on my face. Yum. :P

When we got to 1.5 miles to go, mostly downhill, I couldn't even convince myself to pick it up. I was really just ready to be done. Luckily a couple of SFWR pulled past me during mile 13 and I let them pull me along a little bit. I did pick it up with .4 to go, convincing myself it was less than an 800 meter on the track.

11. 9:59

12. 10:21

13. 8:53

.21 1:41 8:02 pace

I finished the 13.21 miles (possibly my worst tangents on this course) in 2:05:21, for a pace of 9:29. Which is somehow 20 some seconds faster than last years race, with a couple of walk breaks. oops.

Being the type of person that likes to analyze everything, I'm really okay with this performance. I'm someone who thinks that we put in the work from day to day to get that one perfect unicorn day in which everything aligns the body+the mind+the course+the weather, to that magical performance day. And we get a LOT of not perfect days along the way. This was a not perfect day for me. And that's totally okay.

I think that under normal circumstances, my legs would be healed up from a half marathon in three weeks to race another. I think based on the issues I had with my glutes not working at all during the 605 half, my quads were forced to pick up the slack, BIG TIME and are taking much longer than normal to recover. I had to stop several times during our long run the previous weekend to stop and stretch my "quarter" (the joke I kept making because one of my quads was seriously so tight still from the race). I also had to stop to stretch extra during our speed session. And was spending extra time foam rolling and sticking my quads. I was so gungho about running a better race at Brookings, that I may have neglected to listen to my body 100% and fully recover. 

I also think that the humidity effected me pretty significantly. Up until mile 9.5 when I threw in the towel a bit, my effort levels for the race matched my pace plan. Yet the paces were starkly different than the planned paces. To keep pushing that long, was a bit of a mental win with me. If Brookings had been my last race of the spring, I definitely would've gutted it out to work for that 2:02.

Grandma's might be worse weather, it could be hot AND humid. But maybe it won't be. So we'll see what June brings up nort' for one less stab at a fast half marathon time this "spring"!

Race Goals: Brookings Half Marathon

Leading up to the 605 Running Co. Half marathon, I had thought if everything went perfectly that day, I could maybe come in just under 1:55. I knew my training was there prior to my knee getting pissed off, and I wasn't sure how much my endurance had been effected by some significant time off, especially from the long run, which is typically my weakness.

It just so happens that a 1:55 also corresponds nicely with my Brookings half course PR of 1:55:07. So my absolute A goal for the day is to run my course PR, ideally sub 1:55.


If this doesn't happen, my B goal would be to run under a 9 minute pace. It would be a huge thing mentally for my average pace to be an 8:xx.
My C goal, would be to run faster than the 605 half.
I love this race, so I just want to enjoy it and work hard. 

Spring Race Plan

A few days before the Twin Cities race, one of my running friends mentioned to me that the half associated with Grandma's Marathon, Garry Bjorklund half marathon, was doing away with the lottery and was opening on Sunday. The Sunday we were driving home from the Twin Cities 10 Mile. Which got my wheels turning. If it's a really nice cool day, as it tends to be, we could have an additional shot at a really fast half marathon time in the spring. If it's a super hot day, well we just spent a lot of money ($lodging$) to run 13 miles and cheer on our friends who are running the full. I've also always wanted to do Grandma's marathon, but have been hesitant to sign up because when it's hot, it's HOT. In the back of my brain I thought that maybe if we loved the race for the half, maybe we could do the marathon in 2019 too. ALL THE PLANS, ALL THE FUN, ALL THE RACES. It's been a million years since I've done more than one marathon in a year, so we'll see how that shakes out.

BUT. At 5pm on the drive home from the cities, I got in the queue for the half marathon, and 13 minutes of it auto-refreshing every 2-3 seconds while I was on data on the verge of being over for the month, we got our spots! And the next day our hotel$$$.

So this spring we'll have two goal races: The Brookings Half in early May and Garry Bjorklund half in mid June. There are some fun winter races that I've always avoided in the past, but I think we'll make those happen this year!

Toni and I have a half in Chicago toward the end of January for fun, as well as a 4 mile race in early February. There's also a 5 mile race in March and April as check ins for our spring training. I can't WAIT! Although, I'm not entirely ready for the ice/snow storms/below zero temps/windchill in the -30. ahhhhh!

Race Report: Brookings Half Marathon

The entire week (3 weeks, if we're being honest) leading up to the Brookings half, I was obsessively stalking the weather. It went from 40 at the start, to 42, to 45, to 50, finally landing on 59 degrees on race morning. Where is my crisp perfect spring morning? Why did summer come so abruptly?! Rude. I had a million race goal plans running through my head, but I was throwing any plans out the window. Including my warm up mile if my legs felt good. Why hold, back?! Let em fly. Spoiler alert: they didn't want to fly.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. I woke up at 3:30am because I can never sleep before races. I made myself close my eyes until 3:50 and then toodled around the interwebz until my alarm went off at 4:20. Ollie was very confused as to why she was being woken up so early, but then her early wake up time included BREAKFAST so she was pumped. And then sleepy. I met up with Toni at 4:50 and we were on our way north. We were in Brookings in no time, I swear the trip felt like it lasted 10 minutes. We made our way to packet pick up quickly, pinned on our bibs, did our glute activation drills (fun fact: my computer always wants to right flute activation which makes me giggle. I'm way better at the flute than my glutes, sadly), and then jumped in the bathroom line before we lined up for our SFWR race photo.

I had a dream a few weeks ago that we did a rainbow color coordinated race photo, so I threw the idea out on Facebook sometime this week, and it stuck. And everyone just lined up in perfect rainbow order. And my dreams came true. Literally. These girls are amazing. Seriously. I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have such an awesome running family and these are just a SMALL portion of the group. Insane.

I got in one more quick trip to the bathroom and it was time to start! I found my friend Sarah who had a similar time goal to me, and we were off. And we immediately lost each other. Because I always run way over in this race, I wanted to use my knowledge to the best of my ability and knew the first 3 turns were all to the left, so I found an opening and just went. Apparently I lost my buddy. And then she caught up and blew by me. Bye Buddy. :(

Right out of the gate, my legs felt like garbage. Super heavy and sluggish. I didn't get my shake out run in on Friday in favor of extra sleep because I knew Saturday morning would be an early one. I was maybe regretting that decision. My legs continued to feel really heavy with zero pep through mile 3. Uff. I kept telling myself that these heavy legs were still running a way faster pace than any half I've done recently, so if I was going to have a ho-hum day, we were still going to make the best of it! I took my first GU at mile 2 because my stomach kind of hated me (per usual) and I thought I could use some extra fuel sooner than normal.

Mile 1 9:47

Mile 2 9:37

Mile 3 9:44

During mile 3 there was a slow incline (that felt super hard, again super heavy legs) but when we were coming down the other side, my legs felt like brand new. WTH?! I'm not sure if they needed a warm up, or if the incline did something for my glutes but I was back in business. I had a lot of fun picking up my pace, and I ran by Kyle's mom so many times during this stretch! She seriously gets a gold star for spectating this race!

I carried my handheld because I knew the temps were going to be roasty, and I thought I could save myself some time (and tangent overage) by carrying a bottle and skipping the water stops. This was really nice, and I'm glad I did. I took a salt tab around 45 minutes. Somewhere around mile 5 or 6 I started getting a weird pain in my neck on the left side, and I suspected that the handheld was to blame. I took my second GU at mile 6. I found my mother in law shortly after this and tossed the water bottle to her. Correction: I know her son's abilities to catch (abysmal) so I shouted that I was going to toss it in the grass next to her, I didn't want to injure her as her Mother's Day gift. :P

Mile 4 9:16

Mile 5 9:17

Mile 6 9:24

Right around the halfway point I glanced at my watch and I was around 1:01:47 which was pretty spot on for my 2:02. Wahoo! I knew that I could run faster than my first 3 miles so I had it in the bag! Lolz. I started to feel really tired during mile 8. The sun was beating down on me, and I knew we were running a slow long uphill, but it just felt super duper hard. I usually like to start my "kick" with five miles to go, so it was a little disheartening to post a slower mile. The next mile was a slight downhill so I enjoyed that one and my legs felt back to life. There was also a beautiful beautiful breeze. Ahhhh.

Mile 7 9:21

Mile 8 9:40

Mile 9 9:32

The "big" hill (read: only hill) of the race is during mile 10. As I was turning into the park with the hill, Miley Cyrus came on my playlist: Party in the USA. Backstory: in my yoga classes, we do navasana/boat pose in every class. Well like 97% of them. I like to crank up an obnoxious song and we hold boat post for 5 long slow breaths, and for 5 sets. Lately I've been sharing my mantra that has stemmed from something one of my teachers shared in a class which is that we are meant to do hard shit. Our bodies are BUILT to do hard things. So instead of being scared of that, or avoid hard things, DO them, knowing that that's what we're meant to do. So back to Miley. I am a shameless Miley fan, and one of her songs often ends up as our navasana song in class. So it was kismet that she came on at this part of the race. I'm not joking when I say the strength of my yogis launched me up that hill, but it truly felt like nbd. I was up and over before I knew it, and had to resist the urge to "throw my hands up, they're playing my song" as that portion of the song came on just as I crested the hill. Whoooo.

Alright, after that hill we had a little over 3.75 miles to go. I kept calculating my finishing pace based on a 9 minute mile, and hitting a 2:02. Perfect. But somehow that 9 minute pace failed to reach my legs. I reviewed my race reports from previous years of this race, and knew that miles 10 and 12 were slow uphills, and miles 11 and 13 were slow downhills. And none of the 4 miles were shaded. And the sun was beating down on us. As each remaining mile ticked down, I told myself that *this* would be the mile I would drop to a 9 pace, and it never happened. While this might come across as a failure, I don't think it is. Because a Jeri of a year and a half ago or even last year, would've started taking walk breaks knowing that the goal was slipping away. Why make it harder, right? Nope. We're meant to do hard shit, and it certainly felt hard, so I kept going. I took another salt tab around 90 minutes and my last GU at mile 10.

Mile 10 9:49

Mile 11 9:36

Mile 12 was the worst of the day, both in how it felt and my pace. I felt like we were running on the surface of the sun, I was so thirsty (whyyyyyy did I get rid of my handheld?!?! where are the water stops?!?). I knew we'd turn at some point and then the race would literally be "all down hill from here". I swear to god, I saw mirages of people turning left, and I would get up to that corner AND THE TURN WOULDN'T BE THERE. Gahhhh! There were so many people walking at this point but I just kept putting one foot in front of the other. I finally found a water stop by the volunteers seemed confused by my request for water, unclear if they only had Powerade, and my stomach was already on the verge of being unhappy so I figured I wouldn't risk it with a mile to go. So thirsty!

The last mile. Ahhh finally my downhill. I tried to pick it up the best I could. I kept trying to find that magical extra gear. The sun was still beating down on us, but it was at our backs, so it was doable. I set my sights on people in front of me, trying to will my feet to go faster to reel them in. At the 26 mile sign I looked down and saw I was close to running under 2:06 so I kicked it in to high gear. Or whatever high gear was left. Which according to my pace, was actually something. So yay.

Mile 12 9:55

Mile 13 9:18

.18 1:24 (7:51 pace, 6:57 max pace)

I finished 13.18 miles in 2:05:44 for a pace of 9:33.

My 30th half marathon, fastest half in 3 years and my 12th fastest overall!

So very thankful for my running buddy Toni, who I did 98% of my training with and has been a HUGE reason why running has been fun for me again. Seriously. I forgot that training for a race is the FUN PART. It's been awhile, since I've been able to say that. Years, probably.

And my other training partner Jordanne, who rocked her first EVER half despite not being sure if she could run it because her leg was being a jerk the week leading up to the race. Miles flyyyyy by with these ladies. Running therapy. Love them.

Brookings Half Training Week 12 Race Week

Week of May 8-14


Monday Planned: Race pace + speed 7 miles 4x100 strides 2 miles at HM pace
Monday Actual: Rest. I had a monster headache and all of a sudden it was summer in town. I thought the mix of a harder run in the heat would maybe kill me.

Tuesday Planned: Recovery 5 miles
Tuesday Actual: Race pace + speed 4.25 miles with 2 miles at HM pace. It was a roasty toasty morning, but I got it done. 60 minutes of POWER in the wee hours of the morning.

Wednesday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Wednesday Actual: 4 recovery miles that felt like absolute garbage. Another warm run, and my legs felt like crap.

Thursday Planned: Rest
Thursday Actual: Rest.


Friday Planned: Recovery 3 miles 4x100 meter
Friday Actual: I accidentally slept in and missed my run.

Saturday Planned: Brookings Half Marathon 13.1 miles
Saturday Actual: Brookings half!

Sunday Planned: Rest

Sunday Actual: Rest.

Total Mileage Planned: 32 miles

Total Mileage Actual: 21.4 miles

Brookings Half Training Week 11

Week of May 1-7


Monday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 6 miles, 2 sets 6x100 strides
Monday Actual: Rest, I wasn't feeling well. And it was insane outside. Barf.

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Sanford POWER 60 minutes. 6 general aerobic miles with 8x100 strides, because I can't read small print on my training plan, apparently. It got SUPER warm on my run, so much so that I ditched my long sleeve halfway through the workout. Insane.

Also, new shoes!

Wednesday Planned: VO2 Max 9 miles 2x1200, 2x1000, 1x800 @ 3k-5k pace
Wednesday Actual: 2.6 miles with the group run. It was storming really good, so the group run was delayed and we only had a smidge of time before I had to be back to teach yoga. We did yoga and then headed to the track. We did a 1 mile warm up followed by the VO2 max workout of 2x1200, 2x1000, 1x800 @ 3k-5k pace. It was challenging, but I love how spadework on the track makes me feel.
Wheeeee!!

Thursday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Thursday Actual: Rest. I took an epsom salt bath, foam rolled, and used my stick to help my legs recover. They were still tight from POWER and the speed session.

Friday Planned: Recovery 3 miles
Friday Actual: Coffee run! We did a 3.5 mile loop, and my legs felt heavy and very tired. Felt good to loosen them up though! Plus coffee. Yum.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 10 miles
Saturday Actual: Toni and I met for our last long run of the training cycle. The miles flew by, even the last 5 that were in zero shade on a crazy sunny and getting very warm day (okay maybe those miles didn't fly by, but it's good practice for hot and sunny race days, right? Right). Once Toni left I texted her in a panic "WE DIDN'T TAKE A PICTURE. DO THESE MILES EVEN COUNT?!?" So I had to take one on my own. Sad. We were dressed in the brightest of bright colors.

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Rest. I was going to do Thursday's recovery miles, but opted to rest instead. Foam rolling, sticking, and all that good stuff!!

Total Mileage Planned: 32 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  28.67 miles

Brookings Half Training Week 10

Week of April 24-30

Monday Planned: Lactate Threshold 9 miles with 38 at LT
Monday Actual: A super warm and thigh chafing success of a run! Because I had the worst long run (or run in general, for that matter) the day before, I was worried all day long that my legs would be dead again for this run and I'd have to call it early. From the first few strides, I knew that wouldn't be the case. We did 3 miles warm up around 4.25 miles of lactate threshold and then a miserable crawl (or so it felt) of a cool down for the remainder of 1.75 miles in which I had run out of water and my skin had chafed within an inch of my life. YAY RUNNING!

Tuesday Planned: Sanford POWER
Tuesday Actual: 60 minutes of Sanford POWER. Felt so good after taking a week off. I missed it. Reminder to self: don't miss POWER!

Wednesday Planned: Endurance 10 Miles
Wednesday Actual: Endurance 8 miles. We got a slightly late start which is problematic when I have to be back at the store to teach at 7pm. Coupled with a late lunch that sat in my chest the whole run, I thought I was one inhale/exhale away from seeing it a second time. While I felt like crap, my legs felt awesome and springy, and we managed a sub 10:30 pace for the run despite feeling like I was dying. Weird.

Thursday Planned: 3 miles recovery
Thursday Actual: Rest. Kyle was heading out of town for a fishing tournament, so I went home to hang out with him for a bit and took a rest day with lots of foam rolling + sticking + myofascial release balls.

Friday Planned: Long Run Progression 12 miles, increase pace last 2 miles at LT
Friday Actual: An AWESOME 12 mile long run with 2 miles at half marathon goal pace. The miles flewwwwww by and felt awesome, and we were able to talk the whole time (and even sing in some parts). Oops. My legs felt great, and I felt like I was holding back the whole run. Great set up heading in to the half. Our overall pace was just 8 sec/mile slower than my half in January. #progress

Saturday Planned: Rest
Saturday Actual: Rest!

Sunday Planned: 3 miles recovery
Sunday Actual: Rest. It was a torrential downpour all of the minutes I wasn't at work. It was not worth it to run for some recovery miles. Woof.

Total Mileage Planned: 38 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  29.1 miles

Looking Back on Training

A couple of weeks ago, I started looking back at past training cycles. This is one of my favorite pastimes (I'm so lame, I realize). I was thinking about goal times for the Brookings half marathon, and had a hard time wrapping my mind around a sustainably hard pace for 13.1 miles, as one does.

I started looking back at my training from 2014 for the Brookings half marathon, when I ran a 2:02 and was training for a sub 2 half. I was shocked to see that my training wasn't anything special. A 2:02 half seems so fast right now, that I expected my training to be really strong, fast speed work, good mileage, strong long runs. Um... not so much. There were some decent speedwork sessions, and some long runs. A lot of weeks with one run. A lot of long runs that said, "really hard, walk breaks, blah...etc." And apparently I raced two half marathons on back to back weekends. And still ran a 2:02. My long runs are slightly speedier, but WAY more consistent both in pace and frequency. My tempo runs have more miles in them, roughly the same pace. My speedwork has faster paces at longer intervals.

January 2014 60.5 miles 2017 72.4 miles (slightly sub 11 v. 10:38 pace)
February 2014 80.2 miles vs. 2017 41.8 miles (slightly sub 11 v. 10:36 pace)
March 2014 52.2 miles vs. 2017 89.5 miles (10:45 v. 10:27)
April 2014 65.7 miles vs. 2017 110ish miles (10:20 v. 10:40ish)

Whoa.

The cool thing about looking back on this data is to give me confidence in what my training has been like in this cycle. Which might be one of my strongest cycles outside of marathon training (which is where my current half PR exists). Hopefully I'll be able to remember this when I'm running the race next weekend and it feels hard.

Here's to doing hard shit.

or something like that.

Brookings Half Marathon Tips

I have a ton of running friends that are running their first half marathons at Brookings. It is one of my favorite halfs, and this spring will be the fourth time I've ran it (previous race reports here: 2012--1:55, 2014--2:02, and 2016--2:15)! I've been giving out tips and advice left and right and realized that maybe some folks in the far reaches of the interwebs might also enjoy some of the tips, so here they are!

Brookings is awesome. The course is flat and fast. While it is flat-flat-flat there are some stretches in the final miles that are the slightest bit uphill (and then downhill), then back uphill, and finally downhill. It is so gradual, you can't even see the difference, but you can feel it, and it sucks. So be prepared for that and know that after each sucky bit you get a nice mini downhill reprieve. The first time I ran it I thought I was losing steam on the first tiny uphill only to realize later when I was analyzing my data that, oh, guess I was going up. Makes sense.

There are a LOT of turns. I think the shortest distance I've ran according to my garmin is 13.3, upwards of 13.4 other times. So if you're shooting for a PR, plan accordingly with your pace! Turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn+turn=there's no way you're going to run perfect tangents. Trust. The last time I was close to running sub 2 I was 2 minutes over and way more than two minutes in distance. Grrr.

The weather is usually pretty great. But it is South Dakota, so plan for wind. Spend some of your long runs cursing the wind. That shouldn't be hard because for three years straight of training for a spring marathon, every.single.long.run I did was 30-40 mph wind gusts. Woof. If it's a sunny day, the final 4-5 mile stretch isn't super covered with trees so it can feel a bit toasty.

Make sure you stick around long enough to enjoy Nick's burgers. Seriously. These little gems are a god send. They tend to start serving closer to the first marathoner or marathon relay to finish, but they're more than worth the wait. Little sliders sent directly from the heavens.

The medals are legit. Some of the largest medals I own. I always enjoy some great, well-earned bling.

So I hope to see you in Brookings. I'll the one in green sweating profusely even if it's nice and cold out.

Brookings Half Training Week 9

Week of April 17-23
Monday Planned: General Aerobic 8 miles
Monday Actual: Sick and rest.

Tuesday Planned: Endurance 11 Miles
Tuesday Actual: Skipped POWER and had to take walk breaks on my (cut much shorter) 2 mile run.

Wednesday Planned: VO2 Max 10 miles, 2 sets of 2x1200 + 1x800 @ 3k-5k pace
Wednesday Actual: Thank god this run was a good one! It was truly my saving grace for the week. We did 3 miles with the running group, yoga, followed by 7 miles with the workout at the track. It was raining, and it was hard, but it felt great!

Thursday Planned: Rest
Thursday Actual: Rest

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Friday Actual: Coffee run miles with Toni. 4 of them.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 14 Miles
Saturday Actual: Based on the weirdness of the week, I had planned to do 5 miles with some pick ups, as I had moved my long run to Sunday to have Toni's company. I ended up with 3, slow miles with walk breaks. My legs felt d-e-a-d.

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: I attempted my long run with Toni and it was one of the worst runs in a long time. I wanted to quit a mile and a half into it. I finally bailed at mile 5. I could tell my form was super shitty and I didn't want to risk hurting myself for some miles. Still a bummer.


Total Mileage Planned: 47 miles

Total Mileage Actual:  23.7 miles

Brookings Half Training Week 8

Week of April 10-16
Monday Planned: Recovery 5 miles
Monday Actual: Rest. I skipped my run because I thought I was going to meet with a family about re-homing a pug. No pug, no run. Grrr.

Tuesday Planned: Lactate Threshold 9 miles with 38 at LT
Tuesday Actual: Originally I had thought I would be done with POWER mid-March, so I had some tougher workouts planned for Tuesday mornings. Once they offered POWER for another session, I was all in. But clearly cannot do 9 miles with 4ish at LT after a POWER session. I had planned to do my 5 mile recovery run, but I was exhausted and actually fell back asleep after my shower, before work. Ooops.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 4 Miles 8x100 m strides
Wednesday Actual: 4 miles with Toni. I apparently neglected to notice the strides we were supposed to do as well. Ooops. Then yoga. Some lovely stretchy yin yoga.

Thursday Planned: Endurance 10 Miles
Thursday Actual: 10 endurance miles. It was so beautiful out. What a perfect day for a double digit run.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 miles
Friday Actual: 4 Recovery miles with Jordanne for the coffee run. This means I woke up in the 4s just to drink some coffee with friends before work. It was so hot, humid and muggy that I had to take a lot of walk breaks to keep my heart rate nice and low. After ten miles was a breeze, this was quite humbling.

Saturday Planned: Long Run Progression 13 miles, increase pace last 3 miles at LT
Saturday Actual: Yoga. A few weeks ago, I learned I can't run further than 4-6 miles before I teach yoga, because I'm such a creaky, tight muscled mess that I'm afraid I'm going to hurt myself. So I couldn't do my long run before I taught yoga. And then after there were thunderstorms and VERY warm temps on the forecast. I meant to do 4-5 miles just to make up some of my miles for the week, but Saturday got away from me.

Sunday Planned: Rest.
Sunday Actual: I had a terrible night of sleep, not going to bed until maybe 3:30am and tossing and turning until 8am when I finally got up. By the time I got up there wasn't enough time to run before Easter. I had thought I could go after, but I got stuck watching Kyle finish rigging a boat, which took 2.5 hours. aka the exact amount of time it would've taken me to do a 13.1 mile training run. Grrrr.

Total Mileage Planned: 45 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  18 miles. womp.

Brookings Half Training Week 7

Week of April 3-9
Monday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 8 miles 2 sets 4x150 strides

Monday Actual: 8 miles with Toni. I felt TERRIBLE during the run, so we scrapped the strides. I couldn't tell if I was on the verge of getting sick or what, but I couldn't breathe while I was running. After the run I realized that I had a rib out of place, and it was effecting my breathing. Ugh. NOT FUN. At one point my heart rate was 189 (my max is 192/196). Needless to say, there were some walk breaks. Thank goodness for Toni.

Tuesday Planned: Recovery 5 miles 4x100
Tuesday Actual: Tuesday I still didn't feel well, I woke up way early to go to POWER at 5:30am. My chest was hurting, and I felt sick, so I went home to rest. I finally got my epsom salt bath in that I've been planning every single day.



Wednesday Planned: Long Endurance 10 Miles
Wednesday Actual: Since we were racing this weekend, we decided to get in our long run on Wednesday night. We went the unconventional route by doing 4 miles before yoga, and then another 6 after. Second yogathalon COMPLETE.

Thursday Planned: Rest

Thursday Actual: Sweet sweet rest. Oh rest, how I love thee so. I spent a good amount of time foam rolling and sticking.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles 4x100 m strides

Friday Actual: Toni convinced me to wake up in the 4s to do the weekly coffee run. Since it was pitch dark, we did 4 mile recovery with no strides.

Then, there was coffee!

Followed by more foam rolling, sticking and RAD rollers before bedtime. Race Day ready!

Saturday Planned: Chilly Cheeks 5 Mile + Warm up/Cool Down
Saturday Actual: Toni and I arrived super early to get in a 2 mile warm up. I did some warm up drills, saw the 10 miler off, and then stood around forever. Maybe a super early warm up is a bad idea.

Then we had the Chilly Cheeks 5 mile race. Race report to come!

And had planned to do 3 miles of cool down after, but I wanted to cheer on my friends running the ten mile and then it took quite some time for the awards to get started, so 70 minutes after I'd finished running I was freezing and very tight, so I opted to skip my cool down. I did spend a lot of time running around the finish line, so surely that counts for something, right?

Sunday Planned: Recovery 5 miles 4x100
Sunday Actual: 5.3 miles of hiking out at Good Earth State Park. Gorgeous.

Total Mileage Planned: 41 miles

Total Mileage Actual: 34.4 miles