(Abbreviated) Week in Review: 2/28 - 3/6

I am still not in the blogging groove, clearly. This current week is almost over and I'm just getting around to posting last week's recap. Oh well, better late than never, right?

The beginning of last week was eaten up (LITERALLY) by the continuation of my bachelorette weekend. Sunday night my best friend and I got a hotel room overlooking Central Park, and recovered from the weekend by eating sandwiches and sweet potato fries in bed and watching (/falling asleep to) the Oscars. GO LEO. We planned to get up at 8am and run around the park, something I've never done, but of course the weekend caught up with us and by the time we managed to get out there around 10:30am, it was raining. Oh well. I hadn't planned any mileage for the beginning of the week, so anything we did would've been a bonus and I didn't feel bad skipping out.

The rest of Monday was spent exploring Brooklyn with my future sister-in-law, and Tuesday was a 6 hour drive back to Pittsburgh from NYC. Which leads me to...

Wednesday 3/2 - progression run, 7 miles

I can't remember why I decided to run this on the treadmill. It was either raining OR I just was worried that after a weekend of eating everything in the world, I would die halfway through and be stuck far from home. (Probably the latter.)

Incline: random lv3, 0-2.9%
3 miles easy 10:00+ (5.6, 5.7, 5.8)
3 miles aerobic 9:30-10:00 (6.1, 6.2, 6.3)
1 mile goal HMP of 9:10 (6.6-6.7 for first half mile, 6.8-7.2 for second half mile)

In the end, this didn't feel too bad. I did have to stop at mile 5, 6, and 6.5 to stretch out my calves and hamstrings because my left leg was getting floppy. I will discuss this in a future post, but this happens to me on longer treadmill runs (and occasionally on runs outside) -- my left foot and lower leg starts to feel out of my control, it's very difficult to explain. It's been happening for a few years now, and when it first started I got VERY worried about neurological causes and wound up getting an MRI to rule out bad things (ie. MS). Everything looked good, so it doesn't freak me out anymore, but still is really obnoxious to deal with. I am 99% sure it comes from my leg length discrepancy and just a mechanical imbalance in the way my left leg has to work as I run. But that's another story for another time.

Friday 3/4 - long run, 11 miles

Based on the weather forecast I flip-flopped my 4-mile easy run (supposed to be Thursday) and long run (supposed to be Saturday) so that I could get my long run done on a non-rainy/snowy day.

I wound up very happy with this run. I didn't feel great during -- mostly mentally, I was just over it and wanted coffee and warmth and my couch -- but I wound up with a good average pace on a relatively hilly course.

During my 10th mile I stopped to tie my shoe/wait at a red light and forgot to pause my Garmin (my self-imposed rule is that I let my Garmin run if I need a break from fatigue, muscle cramps, etc -- i.e. a stop my body asks for -- and pause it if it's a stop due to factors outside my control, like a red light.) It was early on in the mile and when I looked down and realized my watch was still running, my pace was 14:00ish and I was pissed off. I wound up just pushing the pace until I got back down to my normal mile split, and then kept the effort more towards medium for the rest of the 10th and the 11th miles.

Splits: 10:58/10:35/10:36/10:20/10:38/10:36/10:25/10:25/10:22/10:04/9:17

Saturday 3/5 - recovery run, 4 miles

Not much to say about this run. I normally take a full rest day after my long runs, so running 24 hours later was a new experience for me, and I tried to take it super easy. The last mile was downhill though and I wound up speeding up a little more than I expected.

Splits: 11:13/11:10/10:33/9:17

OVERALL

I got 22 miles in during a 3-day week, and didn't feel too bad doing it, so I'll call this week a success!

Week in Review: 2/19 - 2/25

This recap is slightly wonky because I condensed some of my training in prep for a 5-day-long excursion to NYC for my bachelorette weekend. So this "week" is technically from a Friday to a Thursday, but still, 7 days is 7 days...

Friday 2/19 - long run, 11 miles

Can't believe I FINALLY dragged my butt out of bed for a morning run. I was up by 6:30 and out the door by 7. SO EARLY for me, holy crap.

I got about 4.5 miles done on the way to the reservoir near my house, 4.5 more done with a friend, then finished with another 2 miles around the neighborhood. I mistakenly thought I needed to get 11 miles in, but turns out I only had 10 on the schedule -- oh well.

Splits: 11:14/10:40/10:57/10:24/11:20/12:14/12:28/12:34/10:43/9:31, then tossed in some fast intervals during the last mile -- 0.1 easy/0.15 hard x4 for an 11th mile of 8:49.

I was proud of this for multiple reasons! First of all, dragging myself out of bed for a morning run is mentally SO difficult and for WEEKS I have come up with reasons not to meet up with friends to run on Friday mornings. Secondly, I felt great the entire run despite only a handful of almonds before I got out the door. I do honestly think I've trained my body not to depend so much on glucose during long runs -- I have not fueled during a single run over the past few months and (once the carb depletion wore off) have been feeling fabulous.

Sunday 2/21 - easy run, 4 miles

Gorgeous day for a run - 48 degrees and sunny! Took my dog out for a run because I couldn't stand the thought of her staying home while I got out -- she absolutely loves to run. It was a little tricky to keep her under control (she'd be sprinting if she could), plus I borrowed my fiance's arm band phone holder and the thing kept slipping and sucked horribly (I always run with my phone in my hand but couldn't while also wrangling the dog).

Ran a bit faster than I intended for an easy run, but I think Sam dragging me also contributed. Per usual, a hard effort last 0.2 miles. Splits 10:57/10:05/10:04/9:34.

Monday 2/22 - intervals, 5 miles

This was one of those runs that really just clicked. Was going for 1 mile warmup, 6x400s at around goal 5k pace (calculated based off a McMillan goal half time of 2 hours) with 400m jogging rest, and 1 mile cooldown. Set the incline to random 0-2.2% for the warmup, then 1.0% for the repeats.

In reality, I warmed up at 10:40 pace for a mile, hit the first 2 repeats at 7.2/8:20 pace, second 2 at 7.3/8:13 pace, third 2 at 7.4/8:06 pace and felt like I had SO much gas left in the tank that I decided to forego the cooldown mile in favor of 2 extra repeats, one at 7.5/8:00 pace and one progressing from 7.6-8.1 (whatever pace that comes out to). My legs were a little tired by the end but my lungs felt great and I was REALLY surprised by my ability to pull this off.

Wednesday 2/24 - aerobic run, 4 miles

It was cold and windy and I just wasn't feeling like bundling up, so I hopped on the treadmill despite my better judgment. This run was supposed to be at "aerobic" pace, which for me is 9:30-10:00 range.

Incline: random lv3, 0-2.9%
3 miles at 6.3/9:30 pace with each last 0.1 at 6.6/9:05
1 mile increasing from 6.3-6.6 each 0.25 mile

I got some bad luck with the random incline and wound up stuck at 2.9% for 90 entire seconds during the last quarter mile of the run - according to Hill Runner, that equates to about an 8:13 pace. Woof. My lungs felt great until about mile 3.5, then I did feel like I was working.

Thursday 2/25 - long run, 8 miles

Thank god for a long run mileage cutback, because I didn't realize until after I was done that I had crammed 2 long runs into a 7-day stretch and therefore didn't understand why I was feeling kind of sluggish on this run. Not to mention it was snowing and the wind was driving icy snow into my face like little daggers.

Splits: 11:06/10:58/10:49/10:42/10:41/10:43/10:27/9:17

This felt really difficult and I could easily have let myself run in the 11s if I hadn't consciously decided to push it slightly (for mental vanity reasons). I was pretty proud of that last mile, an entirely uphill 9:17 after a 32-mile week.

OVERALL

Pretty proud of this! Got through a speed workout I was fearing, got all my miles in AND THEN SOME (I calculated this as a 21-mile week, not the 32-mile week it was), and then let myself totally relax and indulge in my bachelorette weekend. So far, my first run after coming back to reality this week was manageable, but I did find myself with really exhausted legs today so I'm shuffling some things around with training this weekend. Keep you posted!