Rubber met the road this week, the first week of this training plan where I also had a full schedule at school. My crash at the end of the week shows me that I need to somehow add more sleep to my schedule so that my body can operate at full capacity.

This week also left me wanting more. I, for the first time in a long time, want to dig deep. I want to push hard and really train. It helps that today marks another Boston Marathon. I really wish that Marathon Monday was a National Holiday so that I did not have to work and instead could sit at home and watch the marathon. I half to settle for training so that I can take some days off work next year and travel to Boston myself.

Monday 55 minutes with some hard effort intervals on hill towards the end
These workouts are just long enough that even making my smoothie the night before, I barely have time to shower, get ready and get out the door. I had enough time to stretch Monday but not on the other days. I need to rearrange something in my schedule so that I have at least five minutes to get this crucial post-run stretching in. This time crunch also means that I did not reflect on the run right away so my memories are foggy at best. I remember nothing out of the ordinary either good or bad. This was likely a decent run.

Tuesday 20 minute warm up, 22 minute tempo, 15 minute cool down
The tempo portion felt incredibly difficult, although, looking back on it, I think that the difficulty was primarily mental. Don’t get me wrong. The physical part felt difficult too. I had to pause at the halfway mark (11 minutes) to catch my breath before I could finish the rest of the tempo. I made it though, dripping in sweat and feeling accomplished. Next time though, I plan to make it all the way through.

Wednesday strength training
Wednesday marks the beginning of sluggish wake ups as the week progresses. I moved slowly as I started and concentrated on good form. We “enjoyed” some new exercises. I’m thankful for the help that Ellis provides with this.

Thursday 20 minutes warm up, 10 x 400 meter intervals, 10 minute cool down
I had to cut off the last ten minute cool down so that I could make it to work on time. The interval portion took longer than I calculated. If I am able to add a little more sleep into my routine, I hope that waking up in the morning will not take me as long and I can get to the gym or run start sooner to maximize my time before school. The intervals felt completely doable, almost too easy. I definitely felt like I could have gone faster. I felt good but once again had no time to stretch when I got back home.

Friday stationary bike
Once again I wimped out on this workout and decided to sleep in. I know that my body needs more sleep because I crashed on the floor that evening and slept for an hour without meaning to. That being said, I think a bigger part of my propensity to skip these workouts is the habit I’ve gotten myself into. It’s more normal for me to skip this workout now than actually head in to the gym. I want to break that habit. Hopefully more sleep will help with this.

Saturday 110 100 minutes with some moderately hard intervals at the end
Once again, I learn the lesson that doing math while running is not my strong suit. When attempting to calculate our turn around point for the last out and back, my mind translated 1 hour 20 minutes into 1 hour 30 minutes so I, just before the last moderately hard interval realized what I had done. I could have added another ten minutes onto the run but the rather muggy weather and the fact that my ride (Mom) had to get back home fairly soon after, convinced me to forgo the ten minutes as a sunk cost.
The run itself started slow and sluggish. I actually wondered if I would be able to do the faster intervals at the end. It took more than a mile to warm up but after I did, the run felt good and I felt solid in the run. While in the first mile or so I kept thinking of Boston and the work I need to put in to get there which helped lift me out of the warm up funk and into the run which ended up feeling great.

Another strong week is in the books. I’m looking forward to the growth that will come from this training cycle.