I’m now entering my final week of training before my first half of the season. Last week was pretty good. I got almost all of my miles in and felt pretty strong.
Tuesday – 7 miles
Tuesday was a pretty good training run. Unfortunately I was still fairly sleep deprived from the first round of puppy we had in our house so I was quite tired. But for the most part it was a good, easy paced run.
I have a love/hate relationship with running in the dark. Mostly hate. But the days that I do run before dawn I’m usually rewarded with the most incredible sunrises. I just can’t even.
Wednesday – 5 miles
I met up with Julie on Wednesday for four pre-dawn miles. We had a good run. She has to work pretty early so we don’t have time for more than four, usually, so when I got home I headed out for the last one.
Thursday – 5.33 miles
On Thursday I ran tempo intervals. I missed my training pace by quite a bit but as I was running hills I didn’t worry too much about it. It was a hard workout, for sure. I was supposed to run 6.5 miles total but the whole running in the dark thing isn’t really my thing (in case you haven’t picked up on that yet). But the suuuuunrise!!!
Saturday – 10.38 miles
Oh Saturday. The bane of my existence. I was scheduled for a 14-miler on Saturday and I was honestly looking forward to it all week. Like, literally. It would have been my longest run since my marathon training last year, and I so wanted to do it! So many awful things happened, though, and I just decided to call it early.
I was planning on running to meet my friend Julie at the park. After meeting her, we were going to pick up our friend David about 2 miles later. We would then run several more miles together, until I split off and ran the remaining miles solo. Everything was planned perfectly. Before bed, I hemmed and hawed with what to wear. It was supposed to start off fairly chilly (maybe around 28˚F or so) and then warm up with the sun and be in the 40s by the time I was done with my run. I really didn’t want to overheat so I had a hard time figuring out proper apparel. I finally decided on a t-shirt, a long sleeve half zip shirt, and fleece-lined tights, plus gloves and a headband for my ears.
When I woke up, it was pretty chilly but I thought I would warm up fairly quickly, particularly when the sun came out. I headed out the door. Not even a mile from my house I started to freak out. Just as I was coming to an intersection, a car came to the stop sign and a man got out of the car. I have no idea what he was doing but I was heading toward the end of a dead-end street. I ran a little ways longer and then he started heading my way. At this point I was panicked. I had my pepper spray with me but the chain of events really threw me off and messed with my head. The sun wasn’t out and it was cold and gloomy, so my mood was already painted blue. I couldn’t talk myself out of my irrational panic, so I decided to book it home as fast as I could. I jumped in the car and headed to meet Julie. All I can say is that I can’t WAIT to run with my dog.
I got to Julie and our immediate start was at about a 30˚ incline for a half a mile. Normally we joke about the ridiculous hills we run together but I was in such a sour/panicked mood that my adrenaline got me to the top and then I more or less crashed.
We got to David and all ran together. But by this point, between my adrenaline wearing off and the doom and gloom of the morning, I was freezing cold and dragging serious booty. I couldn’t get my head in the game. I was far behind my friends, which I didn’t really care about, but I couldn’t get my right arm warm and I was starting to get really worried.
We finally got to the turn around and I was so relieved we were heading back. I just wanted the run to be over. We did finally figure out why part of our route is closed to vehicular traffic, however.
Be careful, Julie!
Yes, that’s the ground beneath the hole in the bridge you see there. Yikes!
Around mile 9 my GI tract decided to go haywire, so that was fun. (Not.) Thankfully David and Julie kept me laughing and happy (for the most part), otherwise this would have been a horrifically awful run.
On my way home I debated whether I would go back out for another 4 miles to bring my total up for the day. But I couldn’t shake the chill even with the heat on full blast and my belly said “no!” I called it a day just over 10 miles.
…and wouldn’t you know it? The sun came out about an hour later… bah humbug!
Sunday – 4.25 miles
When I got home on Saturday, I put in my miles on my training website and told my coach about my awful run. He told me not to worry about getting more miles in on Sunday if I didn’t want to. But I needed redemption!
Plus THIS! Love.
I met up with Noemi on Sunday morning for what was both a difficult and fantastic run. Since I was tired from my run the previous day, I really could have used the extra sleep. BUT, the sun was out and it was a beautiful day, so I’m really thankful I went.
We were totally racing. I won’t admit that I lost.
We had a ton of fun on our run. One of my favorite things about running with Noemi is that she’s totally in for some ridiculousness on the run — particularly my photo shenanigans. She’s an avid blog reader so she totally gets it when I’m all like, “hey guys! Let’s take a picture!” Other friends might think it’s annoying, but not Noemi! She’s totally in for the shenanigans.
I’m gonna miss this girl come June!!
Overall it was a pretty great week of training. I really wish I hadn’t had such a crappy run on Saturday but it happens, so I’m not gonna sweat it.
I also picked up the plankstreak again. Turns out I was kinda missing the self-inflicted plank torture. (I kid, I kid. It’s fun!) You should join me on Instagram!
This week will be a slightly lighter week as I prepare for my first half marathon. Looking forward to the Hoosier Half on April 9th. If you’re in the area or you’re looking for an awesome spring half, check it out. I’ll be there!
xo
TALK TO ME!
Have you ever had a long run or workout that just suuuuuuuuucked?
How did you deal?
Linking up with My No-Guilt Life, Marcia’s Healthy Slice, and MCM Mama Runs for Tuesdays on the Run, and HoHo Runs and MissSippi Piddlin’ for the Weekly Wrap, plus Nicole, Annmarie, Angelena Marie, and Michelle for Wild Workout Wednesday.
