Or actual marathon training week 22? No, definitely starting fresh, otherwise that will make a girl go crazy. It truly does feel like a whole new training cycle. The runs are longer and more challenging (YAY!!!), I’m training more with Nicole since the plan was always for us to train for this race together after NYC, and I have a new much more relaxed attitude about training. This week, I did something crazy and took 3 rest days, and didn’t feel the tiniest bit bad about it. After Shun the Sun, I was super sore and my body needed some extra rest, so I listened. Don’t worry, I’ll probably be back to my crazy self too, but right now I’m enjoying the break from needing to “perfect” in my training. I’ve already completed a full training cycle, and I did that pretty darn well, so I have much more confidence going into this round.
Part of the reason I felt (and honestly, I still have my moments) so devastated in New York is because I made training my entire life. While it’s great to be passionate and devoted to something you commit to, it’s not great to suck at the rest of your life, and feel empty when that thing doesn’t work out. I can’t blow everything off (including my sanity) for an other 2.5 months, so I’ve gotta change my mental game, and ya know what? The world didn’t and, and I still got all of my important runs in. Funny how that works. So here’s a look at how it all went down.
Monday: Rest. I was originally supposed to do Tuesday’s run today, but I woke up on Sunday ridiculously sore, and realized I had put a lot into my half the day before, and my body just needed a little extra rest.
Tuesday: 8 mile run. This run was AWESOME! I was so glad I took the extra day because even though I still felt a little sore and tight on Tuesday, I met up with Nicole and had the most rejuvenating run! I’d been having a hard time getting my head back in the whole marathon training game, but this totally got my there! The plan called for 3 miles easy, then 1 mile at marathon pace, 1/2 marathon pace, and 1ok pace, then 1 mile cool down. Our paces were spot on with mile 6 @ 8:58 and mile 7 @ 8:19! We finished with an average pace of 9:48. Not too shabby.
Wednesday: 4.4 mile run. We had hill repeats on the schedule, and there was no way that was happening for me, but I met up with Ashley, and did the speed workout Coach Susan usually has us do the week following a race: 10 x 1min alternating hard and easy, which for me that day translated to run fast for a minute, then walk slower than ever before for the next, but that’s okay because my fast intervals were faster than ever! Even with 10 min of walking, we covered 2.04 miles in the 20 minutes. At the beginning a had a few intervals in the low 7’s, but after that all my paces read 6:xx with the last one at 6:18! I know it’s only a minute, but a minute is longer than you would think, and that is significantly faster than the last time I did this! I was really happy!
Thursday: Rest. AKA cookie baking. That’s what rest days are for, right?
Friday: 16.1 mile run. I’m not gonna lie, this run was tough. On daily mile I said I felt “great”, but maybe I just felt happy that it was over? No, it actually was really good, but also really hard. I ran with Nicole and we were definitely pushing the pace at the end, but we talked the entire time, and I never once even thought about turning on my music! We sang to each other and had the first official meeting of GSA (Garmin Stalkers Anonymous). I even developed our serenity prayer. You do weird things when you run for 2 hours and 44 minutes. Although Nicole ran slightly less than that because we met up a little over a mile in, and that crazy girl ran her first mile in 8 minutes. I ended up with an average pace of 10:11 which is my fastest pace for a long training run over 10 miles ever. No wonder I was so sore the next day… 😉
Saturday: Rest. Necessary.
Sunday: 9 mile run. Since we long ran on Friday, we did our medium run Sunday to avoid a 4:30am Monday wake up call. It was great–no rush and a really relaxed run, which I definitely needed. We had 3 miles easy, 2 @ marathon pace, 1 easy, 2 @ marathon pace, 1 cool down. My legs were tired (when are they NOT tired during marathon training though?), but 9 miles felt strangely easy! At first it was hard to zone in on marathon pace–we were too fast, then too slow, then too fast, blah blah blah, but actually once we relaxed, stopped stalking our garmins (more GSA meetings…) and just started chatting, we gravitated towards goal pace really naturally, and it felt pretty good. I think that’s a good sign, yes?
Totals for the week:
Running: 37.55 miles
Cross training: Fail
Puppy walks: 2. Do those count? Let’s pretend since I have nothing else that is not running to show for my week 😉
So I’m back in love with marathon training, failing at cross training, and currently accepting new members into Garmin Stalkers Anonymous. How’s your training going?
I have no words for how awesome our first week of PF Changs training went! I hope every week will be this amazing!
PS – we have the holidays to destract us from getting too intense about training 🙂 I think that will be to our advantage!
I’m possibly going to be at a horse show the weekend of PF Chang’s, but if I’m in town, I think I might do the half. I have Goofy the week before, so I think a full is out of the question. I definitely want to see all of you cross the finish if I’m here!
I definitely need to join GSA! I wish I could’ve joined you ladies for the run….runs are so long now that it’s nearly impossible to get them in before work in a weekday without getting up at 3am! I will be joining you soon!:-) Awesome job you guys!!