Monday: 6 miles easy (11:45 avg pace)
Tuesday: rest day (Preds game)
Wednesday: rest day (NYE)
Thursday: 5(ish)x800m fast – 3.4 miles total (10:42 avg pace)
Friday: rest day
Saturday: 4x1mi tempo – 5.6 miles total (10:50 avg pace)
Sunday: 9 miles (10:41 avg pace)

This was not an easy week.

Thursday’s speed work was uggh. I was supposed to do six intervals, but I had somehow forgotten to take my asthma medicine that morning, so I called it quits after about 3/4 of the way through the fifth interval so I wouldn’t, you know, die. You can tell I was getting progressively slower too; my average pace for the intervals were as follows: 9:00, 9:04, 9:16, 9:20, 9:25. Still, all faster than my prescribed 9:30-9:45 pace, which is kind of amazing considering how dehydrated I was after the previous night’s festivities.

I didn’t fare much better on Saturday. The training plan called for 5x1mi at tempo pace, which is 9:45-10:00. I struggled to reach that, despite being paced by Jonathan, and ended up stopping after four intervals. The paces for the ones I completed were 10:03, 9:39, 10:25, and 9:57. Can you guess which two had the hill?

Despite the rough time I was having, I did really well on my nine miler on Sunday. It was cold and rainy, but I managed to run my fastest run of the week and my fastest long run ever. My knees didn’t even ever hurt (possibly because it was mostly flat…my knees seem to act up more on hillier routes). I feel pretty confident that I will, at least, get a PR at the Hot Chocolate 15k next month.