NYC Marathon Training Week 3

This last week of training felt really great! I feel like I’m finally getting back to myself, and my body is adjusting to the amount of energy I need to be up here. Sweet. After my time trial, Coach Susan sent me my suggested training/racing paces:

LR 10:10-11:10
Marathon 10:00
1/2 M 9:10
10k 8:40
5k 8:20
Mile 7:30
LT 8:40-9:10
400 @mile-5k 1:54-2:05
800 @5-10k 4:10-4:18
1200 @5-10k 6:12-6:27

I’ll have to ask her what LT means, because I just realized I don’t know that one. Some of these paces seem sliiiiightly ambitious. Not the training ones, but the racing ones. An 8:20 5K??? What??? Maybe that just means I’m faster than I think I am 🙂 Here’s how my training went last week.

Monday: 4 mile run. 10:06 average pace. The beginning felt hard. Well the beginning of every single run here feels hard because they all start uphill. But the rest of it felt pretty good.

Tuesday: Dance dance dance dance. All day long.

Wednesday: 10×1 min intervals. 2 mile warm up that I practically crawled through, then 10×1 min intervals with 1 min resting intervals. I tried to find the track I found the previous week, but got confused, so we ended up at a park that was pretty hilly. Not super ideal for speed training, but it all evened itself out. Averaged 7:17 on working intervals (with the last one around 6:45–I know it’s just a minute, but yikes!), then did a slow jog for .3 miles back to camp for my cool down. It’s funny, 1 min sounds like such a small amount of time, but half way through each interval, I felt like I was dying, but in the best way possible!

Thursday: 4 mile recovery run. Tired legs. 10:24 average pace.

Friday: Rest-ish. I mostly stretch with my classes on Fridays, so I just took a nice walk in the morning, and was able to keep the rest of the day pretty chill.

Saturday: 6 mile run. This run felt AWESOME! I just wanted to keep going, and going, and going! Ran with great friends–did I mention that I’ve only done 1 run solo since I got here? I’m so grateful! I will run alone, but I almost always prefer the company, and it’s nice to feel like I am able to inspire other people to run. Averaged 10:19 pace, and ended feeling great.

Sunday: Rest. Lovely.

You know, I was a little concerned about being about to keep up with my training while away from my team, and with such an intense schedule, but it’s really been great. If anything, having so many people that I am living with that know my goals is pushing me to never skip a run. For the first time in my entire life, I feel like a leader as far as running goes, and it is the most incredible feeling. I never imagined someone would tell me that I inspired them to run. It seems almost unreal, but I am beyond happy. I am feeling really solid about the training process right now, and if anything, I feel eager for MORE! Coach Susan told me that I could skip out on my recovery runs since I am so active here, but I don’t want to skip out on anything! I am going to ride the motivation wave for as long as it lasts!

What did you do last week?? Tell me about your workouts/training/awesomeness!