Ah, marathon training. The activity I love to hate and hate to love. But mostly love. (Kinda like the treadmill, eh?)
This week’s training recap is a bit of a special event. My friend Noemi has graciously offered to share her take on our training run. It will be fantastic to read her perspective on what I normally only see through my own eyes. Her portion of the training recap will post on Friday so stay tuned!
Week 6 went well. It was a stepback week. Here’s how it went:
Tuesday — 3 miles
I cranked it up and completed a mild treadmill progressive. If you’re not familiar with the term, it means I started at 6 mph and ended at 6.5 mph. That’s not an aggressive jump so I can hardly call it progressive, but when you’ve been training almost entirely on the treadmill for the winter, it’s pretty tough. I’m much faster when I’m outdoors so it will be interesting to see how my running changes when the roads are clear and easily navigable.
Wednesday — 6 miles
I just can’t seem to get my head in the game for these midweek longer runs. I definitely need to be going to bed earlier, but I also realized that I need to turn the heat waaaaay down before I head to the ‘mill. Despite my treadmill being located in the basement where it’s essentially uninhabitable due to the cold, as soon as the furnace kicks on I lose all energy and am essentially trudging through the miles. I often have to stop, change music, drink water, speak harshly to myself (yes, coach) and get myself back in the game. It’s quite the one-woman circus.
We’ll see how 7 goes this week…
Thursday — 3 miles+strength training
My short run after 6 mile day was much better than it has been. Strength training was tough. I’m getting ready to change up my circuit, though, because I don’t want to get too used to it and it not be a challenge anymore. That defeats the purpose.
Friday was rest day and also Frigid Temperature Day. I kept Turkey home from school again (also kept him home on Thursday due to the cold), and we hung out, made crafts, created a “reading corner”, and had fun doing a whole bunch of nothing. It was a very successful rest day!
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| Soakin’ up the rays in the new reading corner. |
Saturday — 9 miles
It was like a repeat of 12-mile Saturday. No joke. Winter storm? Check. Frigid temps? Check. Awful road conditions? Check. Running in all sorts of ridiculous layers? Check.
I swear I look like a troll on these winter runs. Running isn’t a beauty contest, though — right?
I carpooled with my gal pals Julie and Noemi, and we met up with Sara and David. We cranked out a slow, cold, and icy 9 miles. There were so many jokes and so many laughs that it was hard to stay cold for too long. I’m grateful I have the camaraderie on these long runs. There’s no way I could do them solo.
Our run started with a nice 1-mile uphill. It was a nice way to warm up. It’s normally a tough beginning but add in the snow and blowing, biting wind, and it was that much harder. Noemi and I ran together for much of the first half of the run. Julie’s our speedster friend, so by the end of our run she usually takes off. I’m getting ahead of myself…
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| Almost to the top. Nice conditions, eh? |
The road/trail conditions were much better than 12-mile day. Despite running on approximately 4-inches of fresh powder, there was thankfully no ice underneath to speak of to cause panic in any of us.
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| Ice-faces! |
Unfortunately just before the halfway point, David rolled his ankle. He didn’t complain so either he was being a typical guy and not complaining, or it didn’t hurt that bad. I did see the place where he did it, though. Left quite an impression in the snow.
At our turnaround point, the snow looked so untouched and beautiful. I somehow convinced Julie to do a snow angel. Because why not?
After snow angel festivities concluded, we headed back. On our way back we were most definitely running into the wind. We all got pretty cold, pretty quickly. At one point I couldn’t really feel the fingers on my left hand. I had a small twinge of panic. Turns out Sara had the same panic the weekend prior. This was the first run I wore my liner gloves in addition to mittens — thankful for my foresight but even in this wind the double layers didn’t seem to be helping. I took off my mitten and balled my hand up into my sleeve. Thankfully I regained feeling. Later in the run, around mile 7.5, I started losing feeling in my right thumb. Sigh…
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| Homestretch! |
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| Sara perfecting the art of the “runfie.” |
And then we saw it — the downhill! One mile left. Homestretch.
But wait! What’s this? An angel has been here, too!
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| Looks like an angel’s been here… Hmmm… |
Remember how I told you Julie zooms off toward the end of our runs? Turns out she turned around and there was no sign of us, so she plopped down and made an angel. =)
After our run, we hurriedly got into our cars, and made our way to breakfast. I was so cold last run that I planned ahead this time and brought my down jacket, dry wool socks, and fleece boots. As soon as I put on my down jacket I was a trillion times warmer than I had been.
We regaled each other at breakfast with stories of our run, ideas for next run, and had yummy breakfast and warm coffee. Mmmm…
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| Warm, fed, and happy! |
Saturday afternoon and evening I wasn’t sore, though I did feel like I had ice stuck in my lashes for the next several hours…
When I arrived home from the run, I came home to this (which was super cute):
And then I remained on the recliner doing this for the rest of the day…
Sunday was yoga day. While it felt great to stretch it out, I think I may switch my Sunday-yoga and Monday-rest days. I want to receive the strength and stretching benefits of a yoga practice — not just the stretching part.
All in all, week 6 was successful and surprisingly pleasant. Total miles for week 6: 21. Week 7 starts now and the miles start to crank up from here. I’m looking at a midweek run of 7 miles on the treadmill (I can hardly contain my excitement, can you tell?) and 14 miles on Saturday. I brought pretzels with me on this run to see how my tummy would fare. I think I did okay but right around mile 8 I felt like it was ready to cramp up. I’m not sure if that was my imagination or not. I’m going to try again for the next run.
Week 7’s recap will be a whole new ballgame — I’ve never run 14 miles in my life. Stick with me to see how it turns out! 😉
Oh — and remember my poor, sad Yaktrax? LL Bean shipped me a new pair. I’ll get to wear non-busted ones for the 14 miler. So happy!
Have a glorious day, friends.
xo
What’s the farthest distance you’ve ever walked/run?
What’s your go-to, healthy, on-the-go snack?
