5K Training: Week 5/12

Week-beginning Thoughts:
Lots of big changes this week.... first full week of work in six months, first week at a new school for my oldest kid, first week back at chorus after holiday break... I'm just trying to keep on top of it all.

Squad Goals

Monday

Scheduled: rest
Did: 10min of yoga
Took a few moments to just breathe this morning. 

Tuesday

Scheduled: 6.3, hills

Did: 6.6mi @ 10:11/mi avg (4xhills), Big 2

Incorporated three repeats (4x up the hill total) of a monster hill just off our typical 10KTuesday route. No speedwork on it-- just getting up the hill running was enough of a workout for today. 

120' of gain in 0.34mi = beastly

Also went to chorus in the evening-- first rehearsal back after December's holiday break. SO nice to be there, but, man, did I crash HARD when I got home... Fortunately, my husband took the overnight wake-up with the baby. Unfortunately, my phone died overnight and my alarm didn't go off... 

Wednesday

Scheduled: XT

Did: 5min of HA yoga in the evening...
Today was, yet again, proof that, if I don't workout before my family wakes up, I don't work out. 

Thursday

Scheduled: 1.5mi WU, 6x200(0:44)/200m, 1.5mi CD

Did: as scheduled,  4.66mi total @ 9:23/mi avg, Big 5

Incredible night of sleep (thanks, littlest baby!) = up at 3am of my own volition for some personal email catch-up, and then off to the track for a workout. 

It was a little weird to have more than a mile of warm-up/cool-down, but I definitely needed it for this sprint workout. 

Splits:
0:42.0
0:44.8
0:42.4
0:43.6
0:42.4
0:42.5

All solidly in range (esp when you consider the lag in crossing the line and stopping my watch). I had mental trouble keeping my core engaged with such a hard speed effort, but thought this was a good workout. 

Friday

Scheduled: 4mi easy

Did:

Since I'm doing Friday runs on the comfort of my own treadmill, which is a great pace-regulator, I decided to switch this from a pure easy run to a little bit of a tempo. On Thursday, I had the following in mind:

What? You don't make Excel tables with unit conversions for your workouts?
Why not?

...but I didn't end up doing that. I was too tired to motivate myself to do anymore than just get ON the treadmill, so, instead, I did:

1mi @ 6mph
1mi @ 6.2mph
1mi @ 6.4mph
0.75mi @ 7mph
0.25mi @ 6.2mph

Saturday

Scheduled: 12mi fartlek

Did: 12.08mi (2mi WU, 8mi fartlek, 2mi CD) @ 9:23/mi avg, Big 5, 1K with kid

This run was mentally really hard. My training partner and I agreed to do this fartlek thing visual-style, with each of us calling out a landmark and pace so we had an idea of how far/long we'd do each interval. Due to a hillacious route, we decided to give ourselves 2mi warm-up , and then we began random sprint, tempo, slight-push, and easy intervals. 

After about 2mi of this, I 'felt like we'd gone muuuuuuuuuch further than we'd actually gone. So, maybe having the first fartlek in forever be part of a double digit run wasn't the brightest idea... 

We made it through a total of eight miles with the fartlek style, and then agreed that two miles of cool-down was appropriate. :)

Sunday

Scheduled: 4-5mi easy

Did: 4.35mi with double stroller @ 9:46/mi, Big 5

This run felt hard to start (t's been awhile since I've run with the double), but ended up feeling alright. Definitely glad to have had a shake out run after yesterday's fartlek.

Total Weekly Mileage: 31.69

Week-ending Thoughts:

I am so glad that I'm "just" training for a 5K. After my first week of full-time work + kids + training + chorus, I really feel like I'm at about the max that I can reasonably handle. I don't feel overwhelmed or overloaded on any front, and I'm glad to be able to keep it that way, while still feeling like I'm training. 

I think this year is going to be "the year of the short distance race" (though, TBH, that'll probably be every year until my kids are grown enough to not need me much on the weekends... lol). 

Game plan:

• February 1: Hearts and Soles 5K-- Time Trial
• March 1: Publix 5K- Goal 5K
• March 2-April 10: no real training
• April 11: Revive my six-week Miler Method training plan
• June 20: Atlanta Road Mile- Goal Mile
• July 4: Peachtree Road Race- Fun run
• July 9-11: USATF Masters Outdoor National Track and Field Championships
• August-October: focus on Sweet Adelines (international show chorus competition), keep up runs for run
• October 25: Alpharetta Women's Half Marathon, with baby in stroller- break 2:00
• November: Atlanta Lab Rescue 5K- competitive showing
• November 26: Thanksgiving Race of sorts- fun run
• December: maybe find a fast Christmas 5K