Happy Saturday! Writing my week 5 recap a day early because I leave for Boston tonight for a quick weekend trip and I know I won't have time to post tomorrow. This week wrapped up an intense and speed filled week of training. It also brought 2 new plank PRs and a lot of confidence about where my training is at a little over a month in. My plank streak is still going strong at 21 days. Today also marks the end of running this month for me because tomorrow is a rest day, so I was able to log all of my stats for the month and I am really happy with how it worked out. Monday - Tempo Run Monday's tempo run got off to a weird start because I took off before my watch had the satellites. I had heavy legs from the previous Saturday's 16 miler and was stiff from Sunday's 5:11 plank. I was struggling to hold "8:30" miles for the first mile and a half and was sure I couldn't do a tempo until I realized that my watch was way short on distance and realized it didn't have the satellites. I had to go on feel until it found them around mile 3. I used Map My Run when I got home to figure out what I really did. I ended up doing 6.3 miles at 7:33 pace. Mile 1 was 8:20, Mile 2-4 were all 7:30s, Mile 5 was 7:13, and Mile 6 and the last .3 were 8:04 average. I wrapped it up with a 3:01 plank. Tuesday - Recovery Run Tuesday's recovery run was a little faster than I would have liked, but overall it wasn't too bad. It ended up being 4.1 miles at 8:22/mile. I'm finding the 8:20 pace to be incredibly comfortable for me. The winds were insane at 30mph, but it made for some cool waves at the lake which I took a little break to watch. After the run I broke my plank PR again with a 5:31 plank. Arms were definitely done for the rest of the week after that one. Wednesday - "Easy" run After taking Tuesday a little too fast and knowing I wanted to work hard on Thursday and Saturday, I decided to keep Wednesday's run pretty easy. When I got home from work in the afternoon it was windy and rainy, but I had no interest in a treadmill run, so I grabbed my rain gear and set out. About a quarter mile in my feet were already soaked, but it wasn't too cold out and it was refreshing to be out in the rain with drivers looking at me like I was nuts. I ended up with 5.2 miles at 8:30/mile and seriously waterlogged shoes (newspaper works wonders for that!). I then got in my plank for 3 mins. Thursday - "Easy" tempo run Woke up on Thursday to blowing snow and wind, and opted for the treadmill knowing I wanted to do a tempo run and knowing I did not want to do it with slick surfaces and freezing cold snow blowing. I decided not to take it too hard after doing a tempo run earlier in the week and after a speedy week. I ended up with 5 Miles at 7:49/mile. Mile 1 was a warmup at 8:27, Mile 2 was 7:45, Mile 3 was 7:30, Mile 4 was 7:30, and Mile 5 was a cool down at 7:52. Followed up with a plank for 3:35. Fueled the tempo run with Tropical Nuun and Orange Blossom Honey Stinger Gummies. Friday - Rest Day Took Friday off as usual, and spent it carbing up for my Saturday long run, but I got in a solid plank workout. One 4 minute plank, one 2 minute plank, and two 1:10 planks for a total of 8:20 in planks. Planning on 8 minutes for my new plank goal so I hoped that doing it in a combo would help me progress. Saturday - 10 Mile Long Run I couldn't ask for much better results than today's long run. I set out with my running partner (who was hoping to be back on track for 10 miles today but wasn't ready) who had to turn at four miles. He held me to about an 8:28 average while I was with him. After he turned, I took off, hoping to negative split my long run for the second week in a row. I kicked it up a little for mile 5 and then really cranked it up when I turned around. Mile 6 involved the huge hill that I have hated since I started running this route, because it is steep and long, but today was a big accomplishment. The mile including that hill was 7:58! After that I wanted to test myself, so I tried to keep the next mile under 8 and succeeded, running a 7:40 for mile 7. I told myself I would do a third sub-8 mile and it came out to 7:43 for mile 8. At that point I had some members of my running club in my sights so I kept up with the sub-8 to 8:10 pace for the half mile it took me to catch them. I then slowed to an 8:45-9 while I was with them and so mile 9 came out to be 8:15. One one friend who was running with them must have been on the same wavelength as me, knowing I wanted to kick it in to see what was left in the tank, so about a quarter of mile into mile 10, we kicked it up to 8:15 and then 8, finally coming in at 7:30 as we got back to the start. Overall pace was 8:12 for 10 miles. Wrapped up my Saturday training with a 2:30 plank. Time to take it easy next week with the 50k relay coming up next Saturday. I'm leaning toward racing it, but not too hard. This week ended up with 30.6 miles at 8:05 average and 31:07 in planks.
The month itself was great. The last three weeks of training resulted in average paces of 8:19, 8:19, and 8:20. Consistency like that makes me very happy. The entire month wrapped up with 129.4 miles at 8:14 average and 1 Hour 21 mins and 20 seconds of planks. So that's it for me for February, and now I am off to Boston. Definitely will be stopping by the finish line to take in some inspiration.
2 Comments
Heather
3/5/2016 06:47:21 pm
It can definitely get crazy at times! But the running keeps me very sane throughout the craziness! Thanks so much!
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