Sizzler Training: Week 7/8

Week-beginning Thoughts:

Monday rest days have become my friend. Instead of feeling stressed about not working out, I'm learning to love having Monday mornings to sleep-in (until 5am!), get some extra time with my kid (and husband), and use the bonus 30min to set up my systems and such for the week. Solid. 

Also, how do I only have two weeks left in training? That went by FAST. I'm a bit concerned that I'm not "ready" for a race. Training seems like it's going well, but I don't know that I can really run non-stop for over six miles at a sub-8 pace... Not sure if this is a "Jesus, Take the Wheel"/"Trust Your Training" moment, or a "wellllllll, you probably should be pushing harder in training so you feel more prepared" moment.

Monday

Scheduled: rest

Did: rest

I love this change. It's been working so well for me. 

Tuesday

Scheduled: 8mi easy

Did: 8.36mi @ 9:18/mi avg, Big 5
I really like waking up at 4:10am and running 8+ miles before work. Crazy? Yes, but such a relaxing way to start my day. Also, this run felt great in terms of pace. The last two miles were sub-9. Definitely an intentional pace, but not hard by any means. 

Wednesday

Scheduled: 5mi easy, 4 strides, 3x circuits

Did: 5.77mi @ 9:33/mi avg (with strides), Big 5

I really appreciated that today was "just an easy five miles". I was able to trick my mind into thinking the strides were no big deal, and that made getting up and out the door for this workout much easier. 

Strides were around a 6:30/mi pace- just fast enough to be worthwhile. 

Really meant to do the circuit workout when I got home, but life kind of took over. Planned on doing it when I got home, but ended up getting super stressed at work and not returning home until 8:30pm, hopping right into bed... and the proceeding to struggle to fall asleep until around 1 in the morning.

Thursday

Scheduled: 15mi WU, 2x200/200, 5x800/2min, 2x200/200, 15min CD

Did: as prescribed; total = 8.01mi @ 8:43/mi avg, Big 5

After not getting to sleep until 1am, my 4:05am alarm came EARLY. I truly considered bailing on this workout, but rationalized that I could either: 

1) suck it up, do the workout today, and sleep in tomorrow

or

2) bail today, get a max 4 hours of sleep, and then do the workout tomorrow, STILL exhausted

I opted for Option #1. 

Coach Nick prescribed the 200s to be "just fast enough to get your legs moving" and then the 800s to begin at 5K pace and get faster. Once I looked up what those 800s would be, I felt like this workout went from "oof" to "super mangeable". Start around a 3:45, and then get faster. Totally do-able. 

I loved doing mental math on the track to distract myself; in-my-head division and multiplication is such a great way to get through workouts. We took off a bit too fast for the first interval, but were able to do the rest as prescribed. :) 

200 #1 0:42
200 #2 0:47
800 #1 3:34
800#2 3:41
800 #3 3:31
800 #4 3:25
800 #5 3:19
200 #3 0:57 (yeah, def slowed that down ;) )
200 #4 0:53

When we finished up, I was shocked to have covered so much distance (8mi total) in what felt like such a minimal effort. Even more surprising was the 8:43/mi average pace for that many miles WITH a bit of walking on my recoveries. Today is the first day I've been remotely confident about a good time at Sizzler. :D

Friday

Scheduled: DIY strength?

Did: 3.1mi with stroller @ 8:45/mi

After a helluva week, I treated myself to some miles with my favorite running buddy... followed by King of Pops. The whole run felt like a struggle, and the fact that my Garmin kept telling me I was running a 10:40/mi didn't make me feel any better. Something was off with my GPS, though, because I was actually running a good bit faster... At least seeing my actual pace made me feel better about the effort. 

Saturday

Scheduled: 8mi easy, 3xcircuits

Did: 8.23mi @ 8:33/mi avg, Big 5, 3xcircuits, 2mi walk

ATC had six miles scheduled for today, so I arrived early to get my bonus two in. I had zero pace plans, especially since my right calf had been a little sore/wonky this week (I've been wearing my calf sleeve most days this week as a mental thing). When I started off, I definitely felt my calf... but it dissipated within a minute. (Phew!)

pretty perfect warm-up

When I finished my warm-up, I was a bit shocked to see am 8:23/mi average pace. That had to be wrong, right? Nope. Turns out, this cooler weather is INCREDIBLE after having trained through the heat/humidity of a southern summer. 

I ended up RL-ing for the 8:00-9:00/mi group, something I've never done before. In fact, the last time I was a RL, I remember telling my pace captain (for the 9:00-10:00/mi group) how much I was struggling to stay with the back of the 9s and that I might need to drop back another pace group. It's kind of silly to put so much stock in a pace, but I'm also really proud to have "leveled up" to the next pace group because it means the work I've been putting in the past two years is paying off. I ran very consistently in the mid-8s, and it felt EASY. I'm not just playing at being an 8min RL; I actually belong there. I can talk the entire way through a hilly run at that pace, and feel like I want to go faster. I'm so proud of that. 

Also, after I finished and stretched my group out, I'm pretty proud for finding a quiet spot of parking lot and going through my three rounds of circuits. I knew that if I didn't do them right then and there, I wouldn't do them when I got home. :) 

my run crew :)

Sunday

Scheduled: 15min WU, drills, strides, 3x1600/2min, 15min CD

Did: as scheduled; 6.71mi total @ 8:41/mi avg (with walking), Big 5, 3mi walk

After a late night (late = after 9:30pm in my book), I wasn't particularly excited to give up a sleep-in morning to get up and go to the track for mile repeats. I'm beyond grateful that my training partner volunteered to get up before 5am on her ONLY DAY OFF to drive over to the track just so that I wouldn't be alone. She wasn't even running, y'all. #team

Today's workout was a repeat of one from Week 3 of the training, only with 2min recoveries instead of 3min. Previous times were 7:45, 7:28, and 7:03. I was hoping to be able to maintain those times, or maybe drop 5-10s off each of them.

Mile 1: 7:35
Oh, hello. Thought I was going too slowly on the first lap, but somehow finished a good ten seconds ahead of where I needed to be. This felt SO easy compared to my normal mile spilts/any workout at all. 

Mile 2: 7:11
I played with my head on this one, counting down from 16 as I passed each 100m mark. The mental math on this one was fun, and I've gotten very good at multiplying 100m and 200m splits in my head to determine what pace I'll finish a mile off at. 

Mile 3: 6:55
This one felt a bit harder than the others, but I still finished feeling like I could have kept going. 

pretty HR graph too

I am SO proud of where I am right now. It's been a long road back from last fall's PF tear, but I think pushing through the recovery training (and these past two training plans) have made such an impact on my fitness. I just ran my last mile repeat of a workout at a sub-7 pace... and didn't feel like I was dying. BRING ON THE RACE DAY!!! :D 

Total Weekly Mileage: 40.18mi (run)

Week-ending Thoughts: 

I don't really need to caption this, right? 

But, seriously, I'm in that amazing mental place like I was before Chicago: no matter what happens on race day, I'm just so incredibly proud of what I've accomplished during training. Training has been the true challenge; race day will just be a victory lap. :)