Okay. This wasn’t a great week. I think that’s what I don’t like about marathon training. There usually aren’t many good weeks. The entire training cycle is about breaking yourself down and rebuilding, but you may not see the results until race day (hopefully). It’s a long grind.
Granted, this week could’ve been worse. I did hit all my miles and didn’t split any runs … But, I skipped both speedwork sessions … again. I have a hard time running fast early and it was too hot this week to do speed after work. Excuses, excuses.
Monday was a welcome off day, so I went to Pilates and that was it. Tuesday I tested out Spot, my new headlamp (thusly named because that’s the model) with an easy 5 from home. Sometime around 6:30 I saw police lights up ahead and figured some got pulled over for driving too fast down a street people like to drive down too fast. Then I saw more lights as I got closer. And more lights. Being a former reporter, I was curious more than worried. Other people were turning around in the street, but it looked like the issue was on a side street so I kept going. When I got there, I saw a couple of Department of Corrections cars and put it together — two inmates had escaped from Louisville Metro Corrections around 9 p.m. the night before. I saw this on Twitter before I left, along with an update that one had been caught. The other appeared to be headed back as well, being as that he was being cuffed as I came through. I did stop and ask a police officer if it was safe to keep running, just in case my assumptions were wrong. So that made things more interesting!
Wednesday should’ve been a longer day but I didn’t have it in me after work. So I swapped in Saturday’s scheduled shorter run, thinking I could go longer Thursday and Friday, and tacked on 15 minute abs after.
Thursday I took Spot on a longer excursion and even bumped in to my friend and NB teammate, Brian. Running with the headlamp, while not something I would do voluntarily, isn’t too bad. The first bit is the worst as I get used to the light bouncing a little bit. I will say the plastic bits used to adjust the strap rub on the back of my ears, which is the kind of thing that happens when you have a tiny head.
Thursday night we hosted Louisville’s first New Balance Girls Night Out, including Happy Hour yoga with my regular instructor.
Friday was supposed to be my catch-up day, but I had a long day at work … and our new car had come in and was ready for pick up!
Which meant … back-to-back double-digit days this weekend. I did 11 easy Saturday followed by Pilates, then 15 today. Ugly. The first half was a big challenge. I wanted to quit constantly. Somehow things started to come together around mile 8. And, I closed well. I’ve been working on visualizing the end of my marathon, so with 1.2 miles to go I switched my watch display to “time/distance,” set a time “goal,” and envisioned the race from the 25 mile marker on. This was going great and I had less than 400 meters to go as I approached a little bridge — probably four feet wide — and saw a dad and toddler looking over the rail. I let them know I was coming and dad looked startled. At something like 6:30 pace it is probably a little alarming. As I came past, daughter said, “Daddy, she’s pretty!” And dad said something like, “She’s fast.” So I hope that little girl registers a blip in her mind that girls can be pretty bad ass athletes. And, Thank you to her for thinking I looked pretty at a time when I know I most certainly did not.
Big week ahead. First week at peak mileage and the first 20 miler. Really going to try to hit this tempo run and stop being chicken about it. And my friend Diane is in town this weekend so I’ll get to run with her at least one day!
TGRUNFIT 