Hi friends! Week 5 of training was a tough one, but it was great! Here’s a little about what went down.
Monday–5.21 miles, 10:21 average pace, 314 ft elevation gain. I don’t really know how to measure elevation gain or what that really means in the scheme of things. I do know that Coach Susan prescribed hills, so every time I saw a hill I yelled to my friends “HILL!!! We must run that way!” I also know that it was hard, but that could just be because I’m a wimp. Okay, it probably is because I’m a wimp, but I felt the opposite of wimpy afterwards, and I felt like my pace was decent, all things considered.
Tuesday–2.9 miles including 6 hill repeats. I warmed up at basically a crawl, found a hill closer than anticipated, so decided my .7 mile warm up was sufficient, then ran up the hill a bunch of times walk/jogging down. The hill was shorter than I think it was supposed to be. Only about a tenth of a mile, but it had 33ft of elevation gain–whatever that means–and it felt like a good challenge. I averaged about an 8:30 pace running up, and definitely got slower as I went on rather than faster. Whoops. My first time with a hill workout, so I’ll try to not positive split the next time 🙂
Thursday–11.1 miles, 10:20 average pace. This run was not bad. Really, it was actually mostly good, but after running pretty challenging workouts Sunday, Monday and Tuesday all in a row, and then just the combination of that with dancing all day, and not sleeping enough (I know, that’s a huge change, right?), and I just felt not quite 100%. It felt hard. Not impossible, just hard. Still managed to run the last mile in 8:45, though!
Saturday–4 miles. 10:56 average pace. I have a secret. A surprise of sorts. Are you ready? It’s shocking, and ground breaking. Recovery, actual recovery, is AWESOME!!!!! Running slow is FUN! You get to look around, and not feel like you’re gonna die, and people watch! Plus, it’s a really nice mental break to not let a number that flashes on your watch dictate how you feel about your run. I use my recovery runs to recover more often. You’re welcome for the brilliance. Stay tuned for more ground breaking discoveries.
Sunday–Actual rest. Lovely, as usual. I have never appreciated rest days as much as I have this summer!
Spoiler: Week 6 is off to an AMAZING start! Can’t wait to share it with you at the end!
Hills are haaard!!
I need to take a few pointers from you and master the slow recovery run 🙂 It’s a hard concept to actually practice!