Recovery Week of Sorts... Except For the Race :P

Monday
Planned: bootcamp
Did: got barely three hours of sleep, zombied through work, and crashed HARD at 6:45pm
Accomplishment of the day: I made coffee.

Tuesday
Did: 10KTuesday @ 9:19/mi avg, 20min yoga YouTube
Run started off slow and easy, but had a pretty fast back end. B was definitely the pace leader this morning, but I was feeling good enough to hang with her. 

even felt food enough to blitz up The Hill :) 

Wednesday
Did: bootcamp
This felt gooooood. I've been struggling with some body issues lately, and just getting a good, solid strength workout in is a huge help. I'm pretty proud to have made it through all the flutter kick intervals without stopping, but have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was a couple months ago when I was coming regularly. 

Another bonus: I killed the fence runs, with paces of 7:55 and 6:06/mi for the ~0.25mi runs. 


Thursday
Did: stroller hills with baby boy, 3.12 @ 8:47/mi average
Realizing that I haven't stroller run in a couple weeks AND I have a stroller race on Saturday with the Running Mamas, I decided it would be prudent to some something with baby boy this week. I opted for a run through the hillacious Newtown Park, thinking it would be a good challenge... and I could take baby boy to the playground afterwards. 

OOF. This was the hardest thing I've done in a looooong time. I HATE stroller running on hills. It is ZERO fun... apart from the sense of accomplishment you get when you pass the same people and they give you that "OMG, you're pushing a stroller, up these hils, and RUNNING while doing it?!!? You craaaaaaaay" look. 

My goal was to average a 9:15/mi pace, pushing hard on the uphills (which are hard enough to walk without a stroller), and taking advantage of the downhills. I clocked an 8:59 the first mile, and treated myself to about a minute or rest masquerading as me being a good mom and retrieving baby boy's water bottle for him. 

Brutal. Absolutely BRUTAL.

After each mile, I had to stop and give myself a bit of a break. Partially, this was because I did a crappy job warming up. Baby boy does GREAT in the stroller... when we're moving. I told myself I'd do a brisk walk and a like jog for a mile and then start the hill repeats on m2 to give myself a warm-up. That didn't happen, and my calves were definitely displeased about it. Between each mile, I did a bit of dynamic stretching to mitigate the effects of not warming up before a hard workout. 

Other things I played around with:

• Wheel Lock: I've been running with the wheel free to rotate about its z-axis for the past few months and found it MUCH easier (less friction to overcome). However, I haven't been going fast. I tried locking the wheel for the first two laps to remind myself of how it felt. It was hard, but I think the idea of potentially hitting a pothole and dumping the potato scares me enough to run with it. 
• Single Arm Running: I've been doing a LOT of this when the front wheel is free, and it's been great. With the wheel locked, though, it puts a lot of pressure on my supporting arm/shoulder to keep the stroller on course. Probably won't do much of this on Saturday. 
• Hands/Water Position: With the wheel lock on and single-arm running difficult, I need to remember to have my right hand in the wrist strap, serving as primary control for the stroller, and my water bottle in the LEFT side of my caddy. This is a change from usual, where my water bottle is on the right. 
• Getting Under the Stroller: I made an effort to get "under" the stroller when going up hills, which means extending my upper body and arms and engaging more of my hams and glutes. Seemed to help, even if I looked ridiculous. 
• Downhills: Without the stroller, my preferred stride for downhills is a gallop. Literally, I look like I'm doing the ol' cross-the-floor lead gallop from elementary school gym class. This is much harder to do with a stroller, so I tended to just quick step as fast as I could to let the stroller's momentum take me down. 

I was SO happy to be done with this workout.

Friday
Did: bootcamp + 2 @ 9:53/mi 
I can tell I was bad about stretching yesterday. Calves and hams were tight, and I had mad PF when I woke up. Fortunately, a shakeout run and bootcamp were just what I needed to work those kinks out. I kept Brandi to a slow run this morning, reminding myself that this was nothing more than a shakeout, and that it truly needed to be a recovery run. If I didn't think I was going too slowly, then I wasn't going slowly enough. 

You can tell where I decided to slow down :P 

Bootcamp, as usual, was wonderful. I had a hard time with a lot of the exercises today, but love that they always challenge me. Victories today included: rocking the wall balls and executing the KB swings with good form. Struggles included: having to do the easiest mod of the modified pull-ups and slowing down the straight leg raises. Love feeling strong. :) Plus, B and I got some bonus stretching time in before and after class. 



Saturday
Planned: 1Wu, 5K race, 1CD
Did: 0.1WU (yeah, that's right), <5K race, 0.5mi CD
Race Report: Pound the Pavement for Peter 


Sunday
Did: 4.38 @ 9:50/mi with the stroller
This didn't even feel like a workout at all. :)