Peachtree Training: Week 8/13

Monday
Scheduled: 40xt or 4 easy
Did: Mizuno Monday and another warm-up with the fasts (1.28mi @ 7:56/mi)
Warm-up with the fast crew felt soooo much easier to hold today :D 

Our normal start to bootcamp involves a lot of "cross-the-floors", where we'll do high knees, long jumps, etc. up and down the 50m track. Today, we changed it up and did all of those things from a stationary place. It was astounding to me how much harder it was to keep my focus when I had no "end goal" in sight. 

Today's workout was circuit-style: boats/russian twists, squat jumps, inchworms, forearm to full planks, side squat kickbacks, and sprint drills. I appreciated how much love my shoulders and arms got. ;) 

While I always opt in to the hardest level on the modifable exercises (and then scale back as I tire/lose form), I met my match today on our push-up set.


Level 3: blast-off clapping push-ups-- I knew I couldn't do these, so I didn't even try

Level 2: blast-off push-ups sans clap-- couldn't. even. do. ONE.

Level 1: blast-off push-ups on a wall-- after my attempt at L2, I came back to the wall and happily did the most angle I could against the wall while still keeping form

I'm definitely in the top 10% of the people who come to MM, but, man, that exercise was a nice "back to reality moment" for me. ;) 

Tuesday
Scheduled: 7 ONB
Did: 6.3 ONB @ 10:08 first half/9:10 second half , 4x400m relay @ , 800m @, and 1mi @ 
10KTuesday is growing! We had SEVEN (and a half ;) ) runners this morning. Weeee!

First half felt hard. My legs just did NOT want to move any faster than a 10, and that was fine with me; the slower the first half of an ONB, the slower the second half can be. Haha. Real talk, though: I had no pace goals at all on the 10K since I'm pushing at the track meet tonight. 

Wednesday
Scheduled: 4 easy or 40xt
Did: nothing
I'd hoped to pick H up from daycare and do an easy 4 of stroller running today. Two things derailed that plan: 1) his feeding schedule and 2) a bit of residual soreness (mostly in my lower abdomen) from last night's meet. I think it's related to the whole postpartum thing since it's very similar to what I felt during pregnant running, and likely due to all the pushing I did on pace yesterday. Guess we'll just switch rest days this week...

Thursday
Scheduled: 2mi jog, 12x400/200, 1mi jog
Did: 1mi jog, 12x400/200, 1mi jog (I really need to talk to the crew about that extra mile warm-up we keep skipping... then again, I don't think I have TIME for one more mile in the mornings)
Ugh. Holden got me up at 2am today. He's been such a great sleeper lately that I can't remember the last time I had a true MOTN wake-up. Usually, he'll get up around 4am, and then I'll just start my day from there. Even though he went back down within 20min, it was really hard for me to fall back asleep... and even harder to get up at 4:20am with my Speedwork Thursday alarm.

Fortunately, I have an awesome accountability group in my #10KTuesday crew, and ALL of us were going to be at the track this morning for 400 repeats! 

I had a ROUGH recovery from the track meet on Tuesday- lots of PF, some hamstring soreness, and definite abdominal soreness on my right side between my hipbone and pubic bone. The abdominal stuff was very similar to the aches I got while running pregnant, so I'm certain it's related to weak/stretched out core muscles. I've felt it a few times since delivery, moreso at the beginning of this postpartum running thing. Pretty sure it just comes back when I ask a lot of my core-- like pushing really freaking hard at the meet. 

Anyways, even after taking Wednesday off, the abdominal stuff was still there a bit. I opted NOT to try for my indicator run target 1:29 splits, and just push on the 400s today. I did the first one in 1:38, but felt a pull in my abdomen, so I slowed the rest down dramatically. Splits were very consistent, around 1:50 for 10/12 splits, despite all sorts of mental games, like trying in-4/out-4 breathing instead of my usual in-2/out-2 for speedwork. 

I walked the first ~50m or so of each recovery, and we took breaks every four for water/gatorade, which was a good time to regroup and remotivate each other. I doubt I would have done all of them had I just been solo, and I certainly wouldn't have pushed hard on the last one. Courtney, ever the coach, has made it a habit for us all to try to make our last repeat our best. This time, she did that with a "hey, let's all go sub-90" challenge. 

I let her set the pace and lead out for the first 200, ran side by side for the next 100, and then kicked for the last 100. I finished in 1:24, and she came in at 1:28. Nice as it is to say that I "beat her", I've got to keep it real and acknowledge that she was actually pushing on the previous 11 repeats, while I was sandbagging quite a bit. I know she could take me down anytime.

Oh, hey, my HR data actually looks legit today!!!

<3 these girls

EDIT: So, the night after this, I was talking to Jerry about my splits, and we realized I'd looked up HIS prescribed 400 time, not mine. LOL. I was supposed to hit 1:45s... NOT 1:29. This makes so much more sense now.

Friday
Scheduled: 6 easy + 4xhills
Did: 7.04 @ 9 46/mi (6+ and 4 hills)
I pushed myself to go longer and knock Saturday's workout out so that I could enjoy a little more down time with the family this weekend. The first part of the run was so miserable that, had Brandi not been with me, I'm not sure I wouldn't have turned around at the one mile mark and said "forget it". My legs were heavy from yesterday's speedwork. It was humid. Blergh.

The run must go on, though.

• Once we settled in (after about two miles), our pace got better, high-9s, at least. 
• I was still able to execute my hill repeats at decent speed (intervals 7-- part of,9,11,13)
• Green elevation chart shows pretty hill repeats at the end of the run (up Brandi's/my "THE HILL")
• HR monitor actually seems to be recording believable data lately! Very cool to see that!
• Probably harder effort than it should have been for the pace I pulled, but reasonable considering how many 6+ mile runs I've done this week (3)

Saturday
Scheduled: 4 easy or 40xt
Did: 4.06 @ 9:24/mi avg

I'm spending the holiday weekend up with my parents at their lakehouse, which is awesome. What's not awesome: a sick kiddo who coughs all night long and keeps me awake. Poor guy. He slept just fine, but I don't think I got more than an hour straight, and more than about four hours total. Oof.

I'm really proud of myself for still getting up and out. I knew that if I didn't do it in the morning, it'd get really hot, really fast, and then I wouldn't get any miles in before my sister and I bummed around the pool all afternoon. ;) 

My parents' neighborhood is HILLY. I avoided the worst of them, but couldn't do more than half a mile without hitting SOME sort of crazy incline. Really proud of myself for continuing to push along. I didn't take any breaks, and even picked up my pace for a bit when I got to the park with the asphalt perimeter path. 

This is real life. 

...and then I got to come back to my mom cooking a huge breakfast of pancakes and bacon. Life is good.

Sunday
Scheduled: 4 easy or 40xt
Did: 50min spin class
It's been a long time since I did something I was a total novice at. While I've ridden a bike before (and am pretty good at it), and even attempted the stationary bikes at the gym on occasion, I've never: 1) been to a spin class, 2) adjusted a bike, or 3) used clip-in pedals. (that's right, both my sprint tri and my 40mi bike to/from Stone Mountain in 2014 were in normal shoes on what my triathlete friends call an "absurdly heavy" bike)

Fortunately, this was a free class put on by CYCLEBAR, a new business in Dunwoody, that I had a ton of Atlanta Track Club friends attending. I had TWO other Run Leads sweetly help me figure out how to adjust a bike to my height, and patiently assist me as I struggled for far longer than appropriate to clip my shoes in. Thanks, guys.

I didn't quite know what to expect, but was really entertained by the whole class experience. We had a dark room with 40 stationary bikes in front of a "stage" where the instructor rode her bike next to what looked like a DJ booth. Lights and music played throughout the class as the instructor called out recommendations on RPM and gear. I had a few moments of panic where I didn't know where the bike's "ON" button or gear shift was (I found them), but, after that, was able to keep myself on the middle-to-high end of the recommendations, and had a great time. 

If I had free time or was looking for a new activity, I'd totally come back. 

ATC does spin class

Weekly Totals
Miles Run: 28
Days Run: 5
Days XTrained: 2
Days Off: 1
Average Pace: 9:10ish (wait... I ran a HALF MARATHON faster than that before I got pregnant? Oof. That seems crazy...)