“It keeps adding up.” Coach’s words to me after another pretty big mileage week stacked after last week’s, and lots of quality in there. Also, shorts every weekday!
Monday: 10 mi, 78 minutes, 149 AHR. First three with my bestie, then a nice loop after.
Tuesday: 10 mi, 74 minutes, 155 AHR. Track workout of monumental proportions. Ladder workout — 2×400, 2×800, 1×1200, 2×800, 2×400. All at 90% max HR, about 5k effort. I realized during the warmup I didn’t remember the recovery intervals. There was a distance option and a time option — do whichever was shorter — and I knew it was half distance but couldn’t remember the time. I concluded it must be half time or half distance. So I went out, hit my splits, took my half time recovery (very slow jog), finished the workout and felt damn good about myself. Got back to my phone and realized I was wrong. It was equal time recovery or half distance, whichever was shorter. I did the whole thing with half time recovery. FOREHEAD SLAP. “You are tougher than anything I can even write,” Coach texted back. “Bet that was fun!”
Wednesday: 8.5 mi, 72 minutes, 145 AHR. Very sloggy and muggy recovery mileage. Definitely feeling Tuesday’s workout. Got to run with my bestie a little later in the morning because I had a dentist appointment. Wasn’t expecting to complain about dew points in February. Could’ve run to 9 … but didn’t. I was done. Taught Pilates that night.
Thursday: 8.5 mi, 68 minutes, 145 AHR. Continuous hills workout in the morning — 25 minutes of ups and downs. Taught Pilates Strength that evening with a bunch of lunges and squats. Way too much glute action.
Friday: 6 mi, 47 minutes, 141 AHR. Easy recovery miles at lunch time — 78* and winds at 26 mph. Little crazy. Massage after and she did a number on my glutes and hip flexors. Late night dinner & ballet date.
Saturday: 6 mi, 48 minutes, 139 AHR. Are you thinking, “Wait, you normally do your long run on Saturdays?” Me too. This was a hot mess. Ate late, went to bed late, woke up to discover it had dropped literally 40 degrees overnight but the winds were still insane. “Alright, T, put on your big girl pants and lets go.” I was planning on stringing together all my loops close to my house, because we’re moving this week. (I’ve spent 8 of my 11 running years in this area!) It was mid-30s but felt like 26, so I dug out all my winter gear that I hadn’t seen in a couple of weeks and got started. And then shortly thereafter decided to call it quits. I didn’t feel like my glutes were firing because they were so sore, and I knew if I was running differently because of the soreness, I’d just end up using other muscles and mess myself up more. Also it started snowing, and I constantly felt like I was running into a cold ass wind wall. I was grouchy about the weather, I was grouchy about how my body felt, and I was grouchy about being grouchy. After I came back inside, I almost talked myself back into finishing the run but I knew physically I just needed to wait. I texted with coach and we were in agreement. (He tends to be more cautious, which is probably true in most runner/coach relationships and that alone might be a good reason to have one!)
Sunday: 16 miles, 122 minutes, 143 AHR. That’s more like it! Still not warm but the sun was out and the wind was gone, which makes upper-20s okay in my book. Really my least favorite part is that even though it’s cold, my head sweats and my headband gets really wet and cold. Yuck.
Anyway. Had to stop and stretch my achilles and calf at miles 2 and 4, but it loosened up after that. The Zantes are a little less heel-to-toe drop than my other shoes and I think running in them quite a bit this week caught up to me. I might toss some heel lifts into them … and I have a pair of Boracay 3s on the way that are only 4mm. Yikes. Oddly enough, my racing flats (1400v4) have a 10mm drop — no wonder I don’t have any issues in them.
Did a long 10 mile zig zag loop, grabbed water, did another 3 mile loop, then headed back. Never got too hot, which I was worried about. Splits were a little up-and-down, but I let it be. Part of pushing to Sunday meant following the “relaxed pace” directions. Remarkably better than Saturday.
Totals: 65 miles, 2 hours Pilates/Yoga, 3 miles walking. Racing next weekend = down week!
TGRUNFIT 