Marathon Training - Week 10

The number 10 was not a good one for me. The week was humming along (still no core workouts), and I started thinking that "Oh, it's only 10 miles this week. Piece of cake considering the last two great long runs I've had." Cue the Jaws music in honor of Shark Week.

That long run chewed me up, and thank goodness, spit me out. It was hot, humid, muggy, and overall CRAPTASTIC! And I wasn't the only one in my group that felt that way. I'm lucky I fell into stride with another girl around mile 5 and we finished up almost together. Right before we got back to the finish, I had to stop to walk and drink because I started feeling chills. Let the dehydration begin.

And I kept feeling bad for a while. We needed to finish packing for vacation when I got back, and I could hardly move. Everything was just tired. Some food, foam rolling with a brief siesta on the floor, a shower, and I could finally move again. Thank goodness for compression socks, but I needed a compression body suit.

The rest of the week went well. Speed work is humming along. The goal was 4x800 at 3:47. I hit the first one at 3:39 (whoops, too fast), then the next two at 3:49, and finally finishing up at 3:47. Thank goodness for treadmills because I'm not savy enough to hit those on a track yet.

Can you tackle speed work on the track?

How do you recover from a CRAPTASTIC run?

 

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ZOOMA Annapolis - Part 2

Or otherwise known as the bad and the ugly.

We were all smiles at the start even though we knew the hills and heat were ahead of us.

For some reason, I seem to attract Brooks fans. Maybe one of these days Brooks will pick me to spread their Brooks love instead of working my normal day job. Please, please, please!

Two of those four pair of Brooks belong to Lisa and her awesome husband. He cracked me up wearing his Princess Half Marathon shirt at another predominantly women's race. Lisa's blog is Lisa Runs for Cupcakes and she is a fellow Tough Chik, hence the matching outfits. It was great to meet her.

The Lululemon cheer station at the top of this hideous bridge was helpful with all their energy. I "borrowed" the picture below from Emma's blog. Check out the link a little later on. This bridge doesn't look too bad ... until you are running over it ... twice.

This quote by Eleanor Roosevelt was at the 8 mile marker. I think ... Things were starting to get a little hazy with the hills in the dang heat which I had all of three runs in before this day. All I could think of when I saw that quote was, "I feel like I'm running in hot water. Get this thing over." I finally found hubby after we crossed the bridge the second time (he was riding his bike) and he passed off some cold Nuun. The electrolyte drink on the course had artificial sweetener in it, which I can't drink. Boo!

And then it was done. After a lot of walk breaks. I would walk up the hills if they were in the shade, and try to run down or in the sun. I can tell you around mile 11 with a gentle incline, I had some serious self-doubt if I was going to finish this thing. My stomach started gurgling from the lack of heat acclimation. Thank goodness I was able to will it away. I kept saying "I got this." I really should have bought this shirt at the end.

I have no idea why we were smiling so big, but E said it so well. I'm going to paraphrase but it was something to the effect of how proud she was of herself because it was a mentally and physically race. And she was exactly right. We did it and lived to smile about it.

Muscle Milk did have this awesome shaded area with mats and foam rollers. But we missed out on the wine (we didn't bring our IDs and didn't want to stand in a line for them to check us), there were not enough massage tables, we never did see the yoga, and we got the bottom of the barrel for food (carrots and potato salad). No thank you after a hot race. I did like the necklace instead of the medal.

And to top it all off the course was a quarter mile short. See the arrow below and the little green part at the tip. There was no one to direct us to go that way. But this wasn't the worst part, because we ran with the 10k group, the leaders were mis-directed and were two miles short at the finish. Emma was one of these girls and I felt so bad for her. She was having an amazing race. Check out her story at A Mom Runs This Town.

I swear the hills were worse than this elevation looks, and they just never stopped. Even the finish was uphill.

So here are the stats. I have to say for all the walk breaks, I did okay. I was expecting closer to 2:15 when factoring in the heat.

Would I do this race again, probably not. Too many glitches on top of the hilly heat.

So, to end on a positive note. The good things: meeting lots of new and not so new friends; awesome support from the hubby; great friends to watch the kiddo for us so we could both go; and conquering a second half marathon this year with NO knee pain.

And the only thing missing from this breakfast was a mimosa.

 

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Recap of Sep 29 - Oct 7

Please excuse the catch up but pardon the pun, but I am having trouble catching up.

We knew this was going to be a crazy week because we were heading out of town over the weekend.

Saturday's run of 5.5 flew by because I had a partner with the same pace. Easy run after last week's struggle.

5.5/1:01:54/11:15 pace

Monday was a little time on the treadmill. It looked like it was going to pour before my run, but of course didn't since I ran inside. I needed this run to work on my cadence, so it was a good reset.

3.51/36:47/10:28

Wed - Sweaty run. I thought Fall was coming. I was happy with the slower pace.

4.01/43:35/10:52

Sat - We headed down to Chapel Hill to watch the Tar Heels beat up on VA Tech. It was the little guy's first trip to the Hill. It was a gorgeous, but hot day (83 degrees). When we woke up the next day, it was 30 degrees colder and rainy. We did a little more sight-seeing before heading back home. But oh boy, my glut was sore from all the hill walking.

I did finally make it out the door to get in 6 miles (hopefully before it got dark). I scoped out a zigzag route through the neighborhood so I wouldn't be too far from home depending on the darkness. The first 4 miles were fairly good, the fifth was tough, and the sixth was miserable. I should have stopped at 5 if I had known how my ITB was going to feel Monday morning.

6/1:00:05/10:00 (Maybe that too fast pace had something to do with my pain)

Stay tuned for the Monday report.

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And then I struggled

After having a terrific run/yoga combo on Saturday, the run on Monday sucked.

I can't belief this is all I walked.  At several points, I actually just thought I will give up and walk the rest of the way home.  I couldn't get my cadence right to save my life. I kept starting and stopping until I was so close to home, I thought what the heck.  I was able to pull out the last three minutes to finish.  


I'm glad I didn't give up, but this run side-tracked me the rest of the week.  I let work become the priority or the excuse so much that I didn't even strength train or cross train except for a measly 20 minutes on the bike trainer.


I did get up on run Saturday morning before hubby left for work.  He had to work both days this weekend, so I knew this was my shot.  And so glad I went.  The next neighborhood over was having a yard sale, and it happened this was the weekend I decided I needed a different route.  

Much better.  Had to dodge a number of people and cars but hopefully this slowed me down a bit.  I don't know where this need to be faster has come from.  I try to slow myself up so I can focus on the cadence, but it's not working so well.


There's always this week.  


The plan is:
Monday - Strength training
Tuesday - Run 3 miles
Wednesday - Strength train, 20' on bike trainer
Thursday - Run 3 miles
Friday - Rest
Saturday - Run 4 miles