Just like with my training, I’m settling back into my blogging groove. This turned out to be another solid, strong week — a couple fewer miles than last week but intentionally. And I stepped up and filled in at the gym, teaching a total of five Pilates classes this week.
Monday was sandwiched between Sunday’s longish run with negative split halves and a workout on Tuesday, so I knew it needed to be super easy. I was not feeling this run when I got up — it had been a long weekend! And, I hurt my back somehow. Ouch. Bothered me much of Sunday and then throughout my sleep. But, I got up and headed out around 6:30 a.m. in a very spectacular outfit. The weather was beautiful — 50 degrees with the sun rising overhead. Just 6 easy miles to start the week.
Monday night I taught advanced Pilates at Milestone. This is a new addition to my teaching schedule, at least for now. I really think three classes a week is all I can realistically handle. Even that is a lot on top of working full-time. But I love my classes, my clients, and my gym. So I am happy to do a little extra work to make sure our clients have a great experience.
For a few days, Tuesday’s speed session had been looming over my head. I was nervous and intimidated. 10 miles total, with 6 at steady-state — heart rate between 75% and 85% of max, translating to somewhere between 15K to marathon pace, with 6 miles of continual effort. Ouch. Coach wasn’t kidding when he said we were going to get back into it.
This ended up being a treadmill day because, well, it’s hot and it’s hard for me to do speed in the morning. I started with a 3 mile warm-up followed by the 6 miles steady-state (7:03 average) and finishing with a 1 mile cool down. My heart rate for the steady-state portion stayed in the 160s. Edged up to 170 towards the end, but I also picked up the pace a little.
This was a very good run that I didn’t feel very confident about when I started. This is just my second speed session since Carmel Marathon last month. I really wasn’t sure I could do this workout — it sounded really tough. Used to be I’d see something hard in a book schedule and get intimidated and then skip it. Now I think, well, coach wouldn’t tell me to do it if he didn’t think I could, and he’s usually right.
The big question, though, is what’s worse? Workouts or the Wednesday morning runs that follow?
A definite downside to my current schedule is that I prefer to do workouts in the evening. First, it’s hot out now so that’s not much fun (treadmill this week). Second, I teach on Wednesday nights and can’t run before, so I have to run in the morning. Not a lot of turnaround.
Suffice it to say Wednesday morning’s run was a struggle. I did it, it’s in the books, but it was like a hilarious post-race shuffle … for a really long time. Taught Pilates again that evening.
Thursday is usually a mini-speedwork day — something to get some leg turnover but without needing much recovery. This week was an aerobic interval mix, with three different shorter interval lengths — 60 steps, 45 steps and 30 steps, with twice the recovery. Coach uses steps so you don’t have to keep looking at your watch on the short stuff! These were run at more of an 800-meter pace, not an all-out sprint. Controlled! And then, Thursday night, back to Pilates for strength class.
I kept Friday super-short, just 4 miles. I could tell from Wednesday and Thursday that I needed to keep it light. I’ve been trying to add in some form drills, so I did those, too.
Saturday was back to the long run grind. Coach had posted 12-16 easy, and I really planned to just do 12 or 13 for most of the run … but ended up doing 14. It was SO humid. The first 8 were really tough and slow and not fun, but then it seemed like the humidity lessened and it got easier.
After that, I taught both the beginner and advanced Pilates classes back-to-back. Four hours of working out, all before noon!
Sunday I was able to sleep in and run later, which was a good chance for some more acclimation. An easy 4 miles with a friend just to shake everything out.
Totals: 51 miles, 1.5 mile walking, 4 hours of Pilates!
TGRUNFIT 