Well, after two weeks of hitting everything on the schedule exactly right, I knew this would be a week I faltered. Louisville decided to rescind the olive branch of fall weather and present us with a week of 90+ temperatures and high humidity — so evening runs were out. We also had a busy week in my house, with a surprise birthday bowling excursion for CG and tickets to the taping of Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me — both of which kept us out late and also pushed dinner back to about 11 p.m.
In the end, I hit mileage for the week but not the two speed sessions that were included in those miles — 10×100 striders and 10 miles at marathon pace.
Monday was a great day, I had a massage at Milestone and then went to Pilates. I also met with the Pilates director (also my regular instructor) to go over my training plan and how to best work Pilates, along with some yoga and strength training, into that. Have I mentioned Milestone is the best gym ever?
I am trying to stay ahead of the game this training cycle — proactively scheduling both my crosstraining sessions (instead of “I’ll squeeze something in if I feel like it,” which translates to “I ran hard today/yesterday/sometime recently and I need a rest day” more often than is warranted) but also my massages. I’m using Matt Fitzgerald’s “The Runner’s Diary” as my training log again, and it includes a handy long-term planning calendar. Once I had blocked out my 12-week training cycle, I noted three weeks to get massages along the way — training weeks 3, 6 and 9. Depending on how my body feels, I may add one closer to the race, and definitely one after. But it’s the ones in the middle I knew I’d put off and eventually skip if I didn’t get them scheduled in advance. For me, massage is like changing the oil in your car. It keeps everything running smoothly, and you can put it off for a long time but eventually that leads to major problems.
Also on this planning-ahead-thing — today I’m going to look up some race options for the two weekends I’m supposed to do that. The schedule (Pfitz 12/55) calls for an 8k-15k race in week 8 and an 8k-10k in week 10. Despite having used this plan a number of times, I’m pretty sure I’ve never actually hit the races. Two reasons: those are hard distances to find in these parts. A 5k, sure. Tons of those. But really not many 10ks, no 15ks and only one or two 8k/5 mile races and they’re usually holiday-type runs.
Back to the recap. Basically I didn’t do any of the runs in order other than the off days and the long run. Hot mess.
Tuesday was scheduled for 8 miles with 10×100. But, I had a meeting scheduled Wednesday that was going to give me some extra time in the morning so I started shuffling things around. I logged 4 miles early Tuesday morning — this is the unfair time of year where it is no longer light at 6 a.m. but it is still hot and humid. That night I did power yoga and got my butt kicked by my instructor … who is 16 weeks pregnant. I am certain half-moon pose is just a trick yoga instructors play on runners.
So then Wednesday rolls around. My plan was to get up early and put in the week’s 8 mile run. Fail. I don’t think we got home and ate dinner until 11:30 p.m. Also, girl with GERD has a hard time eating wings at 11:30 p.m. and then sleeping.
Wednesday ended up being 5 miles in the morning … with the intention of logging the other 3 that afternoon. And going to Pilates. I failed at both. My meeting out-of-town took longer than I expected/hoped, then I was behind at the office and left late.
I got back on track, sort of, on Thursday. I ran at 4:45 a.m., which sounds really crazy to me until I think about the fact there were FIVE of us running … and one girl started even earlier. Very hot. Very humid. This is when my chafing problems started for the week. Solid run, good company, made it to work on time. Thought about going to Pilates strength class but we had the Wait Wait show and I left work late again.
And we got home late again. So Friday was kept as a scheduled off-day — we had friends over who were visiting from Atlanta, so I did get in some squats with a 3-year-old on my back.
Saturday I was playing catch-up … original schedule was for just a 4-mile recovery run but I needed 7 (the 8 miler minus the extra mile I picked up Wednesday by doing 5 instead of 4). Ran easy pretty early — it was so hot even CG got up early to get in his long run … and he really hates doing that (case in point, it’s 11 a.m. and he’s still asleep). I had a hair appointment for 9 a.m. so I had to hustle. Showered fast at the gym but left my hair up — my to my stylist’s disgust when I told him my hair was wet from mostly sweat. (Sorry, Cory! I love you!) However, keeping my locks lovely took too long for me to make Pilates, so failed again on that front.
Our unusually-busy week continued with WVU’s first football game that night — CG organizes the alumni game watches. Another late night, but at least dinner was on time.
Got up early Sunday, and I’m not sure any earlier would’ve been any better. It seemed to get slightly less worse later in the run when the sun burned off some of the humidity. There was no breeze through most of the run, either. Misery. I was scheduled for 10 miles at goal pace but that was unrealistic. Wish I had worn my heart rate monitor so I could have recorded the effort.
Legs felt fine but it was a struggle to stay under 8 minute pace early. First half average was 7:57, second half 7:39. Overshot how far out I went and ended up walking about 1200m back … because I wasn’t running extra, that’s for sure. But, the wildflowers in Draut Park were beautiful and I assembled a nice bouquet.
And I treated myself to a salt bagel from Nancy’s after the run.
So, 43 miles for the week, 2 hours of cross training. Okay week. There was a lot to juggle and the weather eliminated a lot of flexibility.
Way fewer hurdles for this week and the weather even might play along after Wednesday. It’s a big week — 48 miles — but still two off days. Scheduled for tempo on Wednesday and if I do that I may try to recoup those marathon-pace miles in my next long run.
TGRUNFIT 