Run For Your Life

Hiatus from logging miles, not from running, following our training schedule. End of previous week: easy thursday, 10 miles, 8 minutes uphill tempo (I think we ended up with more like 11), saturday off, 14 miles.  The 14 felt really good, and the workouts are getting better, less instant fatigue. This past week: 6 flat miles, 40 minutes, 6 miles shakeout, workout: 3 miles GP, 4 800s CI, 3 miles tempo, 1.5 warm up, 1 mile cool down, thursday off day, 10 miles, 8 minutes uphill tempo, saturday off, 16 miles. I’m not sure if two off days (which is what our schedule dictates each week, and which we have been ignoring) is better or not for my legs in terms of fatigue. We experimented with gu on our long run, although it was not nearly long enough to justify eating, it was good to see how my body would react.  I had no problems, but it would be ideal to condition my body to intake on runs.  Workouts were better this week, but with ramping up milage, there’s bound to be some fatigue.  Trying to be better about stretching - and logging, for that matter.  

Workout: 1.5 mile warm up, 3 mile goal pace interval, 4 x 800 cruise intervals (I will never know why they are called cruise intervals if they are significantly faster than tempo pace), 3 mile tempo pace, 1.5 mile cool down.

Last week was a series of 6 to 8 mile runs at between 8 and 9 minute pace, due to illness and scheduling.  This week we are hopefully back on track.  Yesterday was a hilly 5 to 6 miles at around 9 minute pace.  Today was a flat, undulating 6 at 47:31.  

1.5 mile warm-up, 2 miles race pace, 3 miles tempo, 2 miles race pace, 1.5 cool down.  Sick but really running again, thankfully

Rest day…still sick but cannot wait to get back to running…

2/12: Easy Saturday run - always feels good and reminds me why I love to run, strides in the middle 2/13: Sunday 10 mile run, with last 15 at tempo pace (aka a conscious speed increase, not actually timed) - felt good, especially after the workouts, 90 minutes 2/14: Off 2/15: 1.5 mile warm up, 2 miles race pace (7:30 splits), 3 miles tempo (less than 7:30), 2 miles race pace, 1.5 mile cool down.  This one felt better than it had before, probably because both the distance and the pace were relatively on - the first two times the distance was long and the pace was pretty fast.  But that’s a lot of what this workout is about - finding a pace and running within yourself for some distance so you know what it should feel like. 2/16: Relaxed, very hilly run (an oxymoron?) - 6 miles, 50-ish minutes 2/17: 2 mile warm-up/cool down, 4 mile intervals (7:10-7:14 pace) - pacing was much better, but my illness started to kick in and these felt hard 2/18: 5 mile flat run, completely sick and went quite slowly.  It’s always hard to think you can run and then realize you’re too sick to - I wonder how much was mental and how much was physical, though.  I made a resolution to start doing 3 minute abs after workouts…we’ll see how long I maintain that… 2/19: Backed-off 5-6 mile run, 50 minutes.  I feel worse than yesterday, but the run felt better.  It was also slower, I think…Hoping for an overnight recovery and a long run tomorrow.

2/8: 2.5 mile warm up, 6 mile interval (3 sets of 2 miles, race, tempo, race), 2 mile cool down 2/9: 7 mile run, relaxed 2/10: warm up, 4 mile intervals, cool down 2/11: 6 miles, relaxed

7-ish miles, 1 hour, 3 minutes.  Scrapped plan to do 4 mile intervals, but had a good exploratory run.

10 miles with hills, 1 hour, 27:47 minutes.  Ten mile runs are the perfect distance.  Not long enough to be hard, but long enough to not feel pressure to go faster than comfort pace.