Various life events have shaped my training for the past week, as they have the tendency to do. Things are moving towards marathon training and I think I might finally be ready to really dive into training. With enough things on my plate, however, I will likely once again, if possible, recruit the help of a coach to start planning my runs again.
Monday 40 minutes w/4 x 30 second hard intervals
The intervals at the end did not feel as difficult as I thought they might. I am encouraged by that. I also did not have to deal with as much negative thoughts of boredom or things like that as I ran on the treadmill. (We were inside due to significant rain.) I would like to translate my average pace on the treadmill to my average pace out on the road and not let the dark and the difference in the terrain make that much of a difference.
Tuesday 45 minutes
I felt so amazingly rested when I woke Tuesday morning. I did not get any more sleep than normal but I had put my body into a state of rest by reading for half an hour before I went to bed. I definitely need to continue to work that into my runs. I felt strong throughout the run but like usual, my pace was slower than I perceived.
Wednesday strength training slept in as a reward
In hindsight, I should have headed home from Mom and Ellis’ earlier and not stayed up an extra hour. I chose to sleep in Wednesday morning as part of my “reward” for passing ADEPT. (That is definitely a hallelujah moment which I will talk about more later in a separate post.) I planned to get in the strength training Friday but then ended up skipping Friday too. (More on that in Friday’s section.)
Thursday 45 minutes
I did not get the same about of rest prior to this run as Tuesday and thus did not feel quite as peppy. I still enjoyed the run. This time, however, I determined that I would run faster and end up with a faster average pace on my Garmin. That translated into a solid medium-hard effort last mile interval which brought the average pace down six seconds in comparison to Tuesday. I think I need to start putting some more thought behind these base building runs such as what pace I plan to aim for on a regular run to hold myself accountable.
Friday I have been trying to get better at preserving the last hour before bed as “chill time” so that I can get my body into a restful mood, a mood in which my body is more likely to get better rest. Thursday night, I was unable to do that. I accidentally spent a half hour longer than I planned with my homebound student the night before and then the few essentials that I had to complete before bed took longer than I thought they would. When I woke Friday morning, I felt slightly tired. My brain immediately thought back to the week before when I ended Friday absolutely exhausted and totally drained. That was all it took to convince myself to sleep more even though I was only slightly tired. Thus, I missed strength training this week. I considered moving it to Sunday but that did not end up working. The reason I started writing these weekly recaps was for just such reflection. (My diet hasn’t been all that clean either but that is an entry for another day.
Saturday 100 minutes/11 miles
I felt amazing throughout this run, such a difference from the week before. I could tell when I woke up that I was completely rested. Although resting the day before played a small part, I’m pretty sure that most of the benefit came from the lack of emotional exhaustion that plagued the Friday before. Although my pace has sunk back to a level that I am not 100% comfortable with, (not a ton different but about 15 seconds slower per mile than I would like to be starting this marathon training cycle), I can tell that various things have kept me from really digging deep in this cycle. Back to the run, I really enjoyed the run even with several crazy close calls with some rather inept drivers.