Monday: Strength training – arms, some core work
Tuesday: 4 miles (11:13 avg pace)
Wednesday: rest day
Thursday: 4 miles (10:57 avg pace)
Friday: rest day
Saturday: 7 miles (10:45 avg pace)
Sunday: 4 miles (11:25 avg pace)

One week down, fifteen to go!

You can see that I’m still having a hard time sticking to an “easy” pace, even when doing intervals! That run on Thursday I was doing 3:1 intervals and still managed to run under an 11 min/mi pace! Several of my intervals were done at a sub-9 min pace. Argh! It’s because it was cold and dark and I was running alone (although with the group, so not completely alone…just no one else was doing my pace).

Highly reflective for nighttime running!

I was equally as speedy on my long run! I was planning to run it without walk breaks, but after four too-fast miles, I started taking them every half mile or so. It didn’t help that it was in the 60s, and I didn’t have any water because the park took my water fountain away! I was majorly dehydrated by the end. Time to break out the water vest again.

I also only got one out of three days of strength work in. I skipped Wednesday’s because I was sore from Monday, and I skipped Friday because I wasn’t home where my weights were.

On Sunday, I volunteered at the Flying Monkey Marathon. It was raining off and on all morning, but luckily I was just handing out race packets under a tent for a couple hours, so I was shielded from most of it. So inspiring to see all of those who came out to run 26.2 insanely hilly miles in the rain!

Only two weeks to go! I’m officially in TAPER! YAYAYAYAY!

This week required some juggling around. I had tickets to the Preds game on Thursday night, so I knew I needed to move my longer goal pace interval run, therefore I ended up doing it Wednesday. Then I had to bump Wednesday’s easy run to either Tuesday or Friday. My legs were so sore from the weekend still, I decided to do it Tuesday. Thus I bumped my goal pace run to Friday. Confused, yet?

Tuesday

Three miles easy. I had errands to run after work (the cats need to eat!) and it was supposed to storm, so I didn’t make it out to the group run. I did manage to finish my three miles right as it was starting to sprinkle. I did 5:2 intervals and had no problems.

Wednesday

The speed workout this week wasn’t really working on speed, per se. Just goal pace intervals. So nothing much faster than goal pace this week! (Well, except for when I accidentally go faster.) The plan said to do 3 sets of 2 miles at goal pace, so not too bad, just a longer than normal middle-of-the-week run.

When I started out, I kind of hated life. The first two miles seemed to drag on forever. I remember glancing down at my watch to check my pace at one point and being in complete shock that it hadn’t even been a mile. I averaged 11:36 min/mi for those two miles.

After my (short) two minute walking break, I started on the next two miles. Although this was the hilliest section of my route, I managed to do them a little faster, averaging 11:04 min/mi, which is actually slightly faster than goal pace.

I was feeling pretty good by the start of my third set and bounded off under an 11 min/mi. At one point, I passed a couple ladies walking and apparently scared them because one of them screamed. I apologized and yelled out, “I must be lighter on my feet than I thought!” I forget how quiet my Skechers are sometimes. I averaged 10:56 min/mi for those two miles.

It basically ended up being about half the distance of the half (6.6 miles total, including my warmup). Water stations are about every 1.5 miles on the course, so in some ways it simulated running goal pace and then breaking for water. Overall, it gave me a confidence boost for the half since I felt so good during it!

I did have quite a bit of knee pain starting around 4 miles in, which is weird because I haven’t been experiencing any on my long runs lately. I don’t know if it’s due to the shoes I was wearing or the fact that I was taking less walk breaks.

Thursday

Woohoo, go, Preds! Finally got to see a shut out this season. 🙂

Friday

I went out right after work to do four miles at goal pace. But it started off rough when I got to the trailhead of the greenway to find the water fountain was gone. I hope they plan on putting another one in its place, because that was literally the only water fountain on the entire greenway. So I started out low on water.

In addition, I had been experiencing terrible allergies all day so I was doped up on allergy medicine. My head was not into running at all. I’d say this was one of the mentally toughest runs I’ve done all cycle. I made it through the four miles. And I did it at an average of goal pace, but I walked about three times.

Saturday

I started out Saturday early by volunteering at the Moosic City Purity Dairy Dash. I was set up at the 10k pre-registration table, handing out bibs. I saw several people I knew, which was nice. I look forward to volunteering at more races in the future!

Afterwards, I went on a five mile run. Since I was already in town, I went over to Centennial Park. There was apparently some sort of walk going on, so I would run until I came upon the massive group of walkers taking up the whole path, then turn around until I ran into them in the other direction. This was supposed to be an easy run, but I started out too fast and it was hot, so I got worn out. I ended up doing fartleks for about a mile through miles 3 and 4 before finishing it out with an easy last mile.

Sunday

This week I was supposed to do a progressive 15k for my long run. This means each 5k was supposed to be faster than the one before. I had decided to do the first 5k easy (12-12:30 min/mi), the second 5k at the slower end of my goal range (11:30-12 min/mi), and the final 5k at the faster end of my goal range (11-11:30 min/mi). (Goal pace is 11:30 min/mi.)

Except I didn’t make it out until after 11am and it was very HOT. I did two miles and called it quits. I then drove to the gym to finish it out, but they weren’t open. Oh well. I tried. I would have gone out later when it cooled off a bit and the sun wasn’t so high in the sky as to not provide shade anywhere, but I had tickets to see “Wicked” with Amanda. So I guess my taper started a little earlier than planned. Oops.

(Please don’t let it be 80 degrees for the half. Please.)