Week in Review: 9.22.14 to 9.28.14

Taper has begun and par for the course, I’m now terrified that I’m going to break an ankle, get pneumonia or get hit by a rogue biker. The last item was close to reality on my long run today, as the bike path was packed with people taking advantage of unseasonably warm temps to evidently learn how to bike.

Monday: 7.2 miles with the team at mostly recovery pace with a few hills at a faster pace. Feeling pretty good from the workout.

Tuesday: 11 miles that was supposed to be easy and became less easy when I got totally and utterly lost in Starbird. Beach abs afterward.

Wednesday: 12.7 mile tempo run. Warmup, 3 by 10 minutes at T pace then 5 by 30 seconds hard and cooldown.

Thursday: Official beginning of taper. 7 mile recovery run.

Friday: 8.3 miles with 4 striders on the track.

Saturday: 5 miles at Manchester Invitational. Stood in the hot sun all day, which wasn’t optimal but the girls ran SO well, who could care.

They insisted on the porto-potty pose. I love them.

Sunday: 14.75 miles. 3 mile warm up, 40 minutes at T pace (6:35 today) and cooldown to the 2 hour mark. Can’t believe this is it. Total body lift afterward.

Total Miles: 66

Besides some short tempo efforts and striders, all the hard work is over. Now all I can do is drink lots of water, get plenty of sleep and work on getting my mind ready for 26.2.

Number of Weather Checks: 1 (For the record, low of 37 the night before and high of 62 and cloudy for race day. I’ll take that.)

Week in Review 9.15.14 to 9.21.14

There’s a saying about a bad dress rehearsal indicating that you’re ready for a great performance. Here’s hoping that applies to running too, because it has been a disaster of a “rehearsal” week! I came into last week assuming it would be a normal schedule, so I took Monday really easy following my big workout on Sunday which put me behind on miles with the intent of making them up easily later in the week. Then I had a crazy day in clinic on Wednesday which meant that I missed my run entirely, a workout that got cut short on Thursday and insane wind on my race shakeout on Saturday. To top it off, I had a shitty race yesterday. Woof. It was a frustrating Sunday and I would not say I’m heading into the final 3 weeks with a whole lot of confidence.

Monday: Recovery 6 and yoga. Feeling pretty good post-workout.

Tuesday: Early morning 10.2 miler with Carl plus striders at the end. Feeling great.

Wednesday: Off, unscheduled and really mad about it. Lifted arms in the evening.

Thursday: Rushed workout. 7 by 5 minutes at T pace and 2 by 200 at really-effing-hard pace. Jumped in the car and drove to my meeting without a cooldown. Brilliant.

Friday: 10 mile recovery run through the Intervale.

Saturday: 7 miles of a laughable run. Convinced Will that we should go to the Causeway. Not too bad on the way out, but turned around to a 40 mph headwind. Because we didn’t want to trash my hip flexors, we walked for a mile before jogging back. Striders after.

Sunday: Downtown 10K in 40:27 thanks to a 24 mph headwind and 60+ dewpoint. Felt fine on the warmup and during the race (besides weather conditions) then spent 45 minutes post-race with my head down on Church Street with heart palpitations. Was in serious Sinus Tach until 10:30 (laying down on my bed racing at 140 bpm) and felt off for the rest of the day even when I got back in normal rhythm. Total of 10 miles and total frustration.

It’s hard not to have a week like the last one and not have a total meltdown, get in your bed and decide to scratch all future races. I’m resisting the urge to do that, running full volume until Friday of this week and going into taper with the hope that all my hard work this summer will come together in three weeks.

Week in Review 9.1.14 to 9.7.14

Just when I think I have the hang of balancing medical school, coaching and running:

No Words CRR

Monday: 9.3 Recovery

Tuesday: 9 miles.

Wednesday: 11 miles with 2 by 20 at T pace with 5 miles in between. Hot and hill but kept my heart at 170.

Thursday: 9.7 recovery.

Friday: 10.3 miles with 4 striders at the end.

Saturday am: 5 miles. Coaching snafu.

Saturday pm: 5 miles, trying to finish the week up.

Sunday: 20.5 miles and nailed my nutrition! Root Beer Gu is amazing.

Total Mileage: 80 miles.

This week was just plain overwhelming schedule-wise. I survived, my team is still intact (and ran incredibly well on Saturday) and I think I’m still enrolled in medical school. 5 more weeks to go!

 

Week in Review 7.21 to 7.27

We started our road trip today! As such, all of these posts will be on my phone for the week so please excuse any funky formatting.

It was a solid week of training and a nice confidence boost to start off Phase 3. I’m looking forward to my adaptation week and to doing runs all across the country this week. I’m also looking forward to hotel gyms; for some reason, I love lifting in hotels.

Monday: 15.5 mile tempo run. 2 by 20 minutes at T pace. Since it was 86, I did this with a HR monitor on and kept my heart at 170. First 20 was 6:53 pace, second 20 was 6:43. Given the heat, I’m happy with this.

Tuesday: 8 mile recovery run.

Wednesday am: 9 miles easy.

Wednesday pm: 5.5 miles easy.

Thursday: 18 mile long run. No workout, just long run for time. Pretty tired by the end of this.

Friday: 7.5 mile recovery run.

Saturday: 16 by 400 with 1:1 recovery. Total of 10.5 miles. So nice to have Will pacing me! Quads over this week by the last rep.

Sunday am: 5 miles at the crack of dawn.

Sunday pm: 3 miles on the hotel treadmill in Virginia.

Total Miles: 82 and change.

Looks like marathon training…

Listen to Your Heart

Now that you’ll have that song in your head for a week…

Will and I have a habit of inadvertently getting each other the same gift for the same holiday. For Christmas, for example, we were both so proud of ourselves for our finds for one another, only to find out that we had both purchased beautiful kitchen knives for the other. For our wedding presents, I could barely wait to give Will his pocket watch to complete his Victorian-England accessories collection. In turn, he got me a brand new Garmin (Forerunner 210) for maximum data analysis!

It’s BEAUTIFUL and tiny and has pretty scrolling on it. It also comes with a heart rate monitor that is approaching comfortable.

However, I should have known that the coach component of my husband had ulterior motives. Our schedules are about to get even more crunched with the onset of medical school, so it’s imperative that every run meets its purpose exactly. That means easy runs truly easy, tempo runs at the right pace and enough recovery to compensate for an almost guaranteed state of sleep deprivation. To accomplish this, I’m incorporating heart rate based training into my life and the transition has been…rocky. Heart rate is affected by lots of things beyond just your effort level, including hydration, heat, sleep, and stress. I learned this on Saturday, for example, when I went out for my long run that was supposed to be at an easy pace (Target HR in the low 130s) and spiked up to 140 within the first half mile. Even crawling along didn’t really bring it down. It ended up taking 4 painfully slow and emotionally stressful miles to come back down to normal. Needless to say, I did not leave the run with a lot of confidence.

The good news is that as I’m adding in strides and fartlek workouts, things seem to be coming back to normal. My legs realize that I have more than one pace and seem to be adjusting accordingly. Right now, my heart rate suggests that my legs can’t go fast enough to truly get into tempo or interval zone, which is an easier problem to fix than lungs behind my legs. As we gear up for fall, here’s hoping my legs re-learn how to turn over fast enough to race a distance that is about an 1/8th of the marathon.