Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon Training Week 3

Monday Planned: GA+Speed 6 miles with 6x100 strides
Monday Actual: GA+Speed 6 miles with 6x100 strides in 86 degrees. This watch face will never get old. Also I need to start charging my iPod for these color runs.

Tuesday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles
Tuesday Actual: Rest, foam rolling and core.

Wednesday Planned:  9 miles with 2x1200, 2x1000, 2x800 
Wednesday Actual: 60 minute POWER session in the morning, and I was off at noon so I attempted my speed work at the track. Woof. It was so hot and humid, but I was bound and determined to do it. Until I wasn't. It was so hot, and so humid (oh did I already say that??) and there were waves of heat coming off from the black track making the breathing stifling. I did the first two 1200s, and then just had to leave. I was cooking, and burning, and I was a mess. Uff da.

Thursday Planned:  Rest
Thursday Actual: Rest. I considered finishing my workout from Wednesday, but the weather was identical and I wanted to spend some time with Kyle before he went out of town. Also, I was really sick or running by myself. Blah.

Friday Planned: Recovery 3
Friday Actual: I had plans to meet up with Jessica for the coffee run, but woke up to lightning so I went back to bed.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 10 miles
Saturday Actual: 10 mile long run. I woke up to another round of storms, and had to teach yoga mid-morning, so that left 12:30pm as the time to run long. In 80 degrees and a million percent humidity. But I did it! And survived! And check out how salty my hat is. Barf.

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Rest

Total Mileage Planned: 32 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  19.33 miles 

Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon Training Week 2

Monday Planned: GA+Speed 8 miles 2 sets 4x150 strides
Monday Actual: 6 miles, a few strides, some walk breaks. All of the sun and very tired legs on gravel. Followed by an ice bath in the lake after. Magical.
























Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Rest + massage.

Wednesday Planned:  GA 7 Miles
Wednesday Actual: GA 8 miles, 4 miles before yoga and 4 after.

Thursday Planned:  10 miles, 5 @ LT
Thursday Actual: I opted to swap the 10 miles with workout for the 10 mile long run since Saturday will be so much nicer. 10 degrees in 93 degrees made me feel like a rock star.

Friday Planned: Recovery 3 Miles
Friday Actual: 3 Miles of recovery. I waited until it was way too hot, and after Thursday night's run, I was just pooped/wiped. I ended up walk/running a lot the second half of the run. 

Saturday Planned: Endurance 10 Miles
Saturday Actual: During work on Friday, I tweaked my knee moving some furniture and spent the rest of the day limping horribly. It felt better Saturday but I opted to take a rest day. Spent a lot of time icing, ibuprofen, and foam rolling. I wanted to do my long run on Sunday, but Toni was my voice of reason and required me to rest another day. Probably smart with grandma's half just two weeks away!

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Rest, more ice, foam rolling.

Total Mileage Planned: 38 Miles
Total Mileage Actual:  27 miles

Garry Bjorklund Half Marathon Training Week 1

Monday Planned: GA 8 miles
Monday Actual: I woke up to run Monday morning with the most ferocious headache. I took some ibuprofen and snuggled the pug, expecting it to be gone in 20-30 minutes. It continued for 3 days. Needless to say I went back to bed until I had to go to work, and didn't get the run in.

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: VO2 Max 10 miles, 2 sets of 2x1200, 1x800@ 3k-5k--modified. We made it through about 7 miles of the day, the first set of 2x1200 & 1x800 and the first 1200 of the second set before my calve started to really bother me. I jogged it out, stretched it out, and during a recovery jog stretch it felt like someone shot me in the leg with an arrow so I opted to cut the run short. Some foam rolling after found the culprit--knots on knots in my calves. Uff da.

Wednesday Planned:  VO2 Max 10 miles, 2 sets of 2x1200, 1x800@ 3k-5k
Wednesday Actual: 4 miles recovery with the group run at 605.

Thursday Planned:  Rest
Thursday Actual: We had planned to do 5 miles in the morning to make up for a bit of the missed miles on Tuesday, but when my alarm went off at 5:30am, so did a major thunderstorm outside. Harumph. Since I ran after work instead, I cut it down to 4 miles knowing I needed to do my long run in 10 short hours.

Friday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles
Friday Actual: Endurance 12 miles in all the heat and humidity. I had to wring out my ponytail before going to Starbucks after because I was dripping so badly. Gross.

Saturday Planned: Endurance 12 miles
Saturday Actual: Rest

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: 4 ish miles on gravel recovery run around the lake. Hot and windy!

Total Mileage Planned: 34 miles
Total Mileage Actual:  31.17 miles

Recovery Week

Monday: Rest, doctor's appointment to try to sort out the gallbladder annoyance. Epsom bath....ahhhh.

Tuesday: Foam rolling + another doctor's appointment to try to sort out the gallbladder annoyance.

Wednesday: First run! 3 miles at the group run with Toni. Legs felt good, heart rate was crazy whackadoodle for the beginning but then it settled in.

Yes, she did follow me into a parking lot on our drive home to make me take a post-run post-yoga selfie with her. Next to a pawn shop. As one does.

Thursday: Rest + another doctor's appointment to try to sort out the gallbladder annoyance. A 3.5 hour doctor's appointment. I could've gotten in a good long run and drank a couple of beers in that time!

Friday: Coffee run with Toni! 4 miles.

Find out that my stomach issues are *not* my gallbladder. WTF.

This is my face both when I got the news and also when the barista was continually rude all through out our short stay at the coffee shop post-run. Woof.



Saturday: It was the first meet up for the 605 Race Crew, and I had wanted to run between 5-7 miles. Even though my gallbladder is supposedly fine, I still continue to have pain WHERE MY GALLBLADDER EXISTS. My stomach was super upset before the run, but managed to behave for 5 miles.

Toni was out of town and my replacement running buddy showed up with a matching shirt on! And I failed to take a picture. Probably for the best, I wouldn't want Toni to feel like she was being replaced.

There were donuts. God bless you 605 Running Co.

Sunday: Rest. I did some foam rolling and myofascial release balls during yoga. Bliss.

F^3 Lake Half Marathon Training Week 2

Week of November 27 - December 3

Monday Planned: LT 8 miles 20 minutes at LT, 4 min recovery, 16 minutes LT
Monday Actual: I was sick, so I had an unintended rest day.

Tuesday Planned: General Aerobic 5 miles
Tuesday Actual: General Aerobic 6 miles with Taylor Swift's new album to keep me company.

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 3 miles
Wednesday Actual: General Aerobic 4 miles at the group run. We dressed 100% identically 100% on accident.

Thursday Planned: General Aerobic + Speed 7 miles 10x100 strides
Thursday Actual: LT 8 miles 20 minutes at LT, 4 min recovery, 16 minutes LT. So so so hard.

Friday Planned: Rest
Friday Actual: 4 Recovery Miles at the coffee run with Toni!

Saturday Planned: Rest
Saturday Actual: Rest

Sunday Planned: Endurance 12 miles, increase effort last 3 miles at LT pace
Sunday Actual: 12 miles, increased effort last 3 miles, but it was completely dark out so it was hard to see, thus harder to really speed up and not be afraid of falling.

Total Mileage Planned: 35 Miles
Total Mileage Actual: 34.2 miles

F^3 Lake Half Marathon Training Week 1

Week of November 20-26

Monday Planned: General Aerobic 8 miles with 2 sets of 5x150 strides
Monday Actual: General aerobic 5 miles with 2 sets of 5x100 strides. Since we did our long run on Sunday, we did less miles than planned. I apparently didn't look at the strides because I thought we had 100 m strides. Oops.

Tuesday Planned: Rest
Tuesday Actual: Core work and some calve work to try to unlock these huge knots in my legs!

Wednesday Planned: General Aerobic 3 miles
Wednesday Actual: 3 general aerobic miles with Maren at the 605 group run!

Thursday Planned: 8 miles including 4 or 6 mile Turkey Day race!
Thursday Actual: I couldn't find anyone to warm up with me, and was unsure about running in the area in the dark solo. Kept a super casual attitude about that race I guess. :P Ended up missing the finishing turn for the 10k, so ended up at 6.33 miles, and then found some buddies for a cool down mile!

Friday Planned: 4 Recovery Miles
Friday Actual: 4 recovery miles with some new running buddies! I had planned for it to be more of a recovery race so I had raced the day before and was going long on Friday, but it's so hard to watch your watch when it's pitch black out, so it may have been too speedy, but it felt okay.

Saturday Planned: Long Run 9 miles
Saturday Actual: I found a new running buddy to tackle 9 miles with me at 7AM(!!!!) Saturday morning. 605 was giving out goody bags to the first 20 people in the store, so that helped get me out of bed and to the store EARLY. Our friend Kristin joined us around mile 4. The miles just flewwwwwww by. It was such a fast run, and speedy fast too, but my heart rate was like: this is cool, we're cool. 

Sunday Planned: Rest
Sunday Actual: Since we cut our Monday run a little short, I had some recovery miles to take care of. And I didn't want to do them AT ALL. No one to run with, tired legs, and my bed just was in love with me. Solo runs suck. I did 3.5 miles.

Total Mileage Planned: 32 Miles
Total Mileage Actual: 32 miles

Ocean View Half Marathon Training Week 5

Week of October 30-November 5

Monday Planned: Race pace + Speed 7 Miles 4x100 strides, 2 miles @ HM pace
Monday Actual: Rest day. After 3 days of running in a row and a left calve that's still being a jerk, I opted for a rest day. 7 miles don't mean much if I can't run 13.1 on Sunday! Foam rolling+myofascial release and core work.

Tuesday Planned: Recovery 5 miles
Tuesday Actual: Rest. 

Wednesday Planned: Recovery 4 Miles
Wednesday Actual: 4 miles General Aerobic. Last minute hill training (spoiler alert: I should've done more of it!)

Thursday Planned: Rest/Travel Day
Thursday Actual: Rest/Travel Day


Friday Planned: Recovery 3 miles 4x100
Friday Actual: Recovery 3 miles 4x100 on ALL OF THE HILLS.

Saturday Planned: Recovery 3 miles 4x100
Saturday Actual: 2 miles recovery 4x100 strides.

Sunday Planned: Ocean View Half Marathon
Sunday Actual: Ocean View Half Marathon +.15 because I truly suck at running tangents and this course required excessive back and forth running across two lanes of highway due to traffic. But I'm not bitter about it!

Total Mileage Planned: 35 Miles
Total Mileage Actual: 22.25 miles

What I'm Loving Right Now: Believe Training Journal

Last fall, I ordered a Believe Training journal prior to starting marathon training (which just didn't ever start). It arrived the week of the Sioux Falls half marathon, and I have absolutely loved journaling in it for the past year. I've always tracked my training online, but that's typically time, distance, pace, what shoes worn. The journal allows me space to include how the run felt and anything else of note.



I also love using it to track my recovery practices. I would never log my core work, or foam rolling, epsom baths, massages, etc. But instead of having a big ol' REST written on a day, I enjoy writing down my recovery practices. It also helps remind me that on days off I can still do a lot to make my running stronger.

Prior to this year's Sioux Falls half, I went through the journal from start to finish (well almost, I made it until June before Kyle got bored and wanted attention) reviewing my goals, both short term and long term, and seeing how much my running has progressed over the last year was really inspiring. I have some BIG goals for running, some may say crazy or impossible, but having a big long-term goal makes it easier to put in the small work day-to-day. I know I'm still a couple of training cycles away from PR shape, and that would be really defeating to deal with if I wasn't working toward longer term goals.



To see my progress from one year of working really hard has been a lot of fun, and I can't wait to look back a year from now to see that continued progress.

I bought a new journal last winter, because I found the Compete one on sale, I picked up a couple of the other ones for gifts for running friends, and I just dug mine out, as I knew mine would be running out because I've been using it for a year. When I flipped to the end of my journal, I discovered that the very last entry day is October 1, the day of the Twin Cities 10 Mile.

That couldn't have worked out any better.

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