Bellingham Bay Marathon Training: Week 9 – A Much Needed Great Week

dffudid —> All weekly recap posts begin this way. I out a bunch of random letters in to hold the space for the intro, because if I paste the bulleted section below first, it messes up the formatting for the entire post. Today, I decided to keep the gibberish.

I had, last week, what could only be described as a GREAT week of training! Finally! After struggling for a little — I mean, just the week before, running sucked — I really needed a good one.

I didn’t think it would be a good one when I woke up on Tuesday morning to do my mile repeats and The Weather Channel app said it was 95% humidity. I tweeted that I wanted to cry. And my stomach hurt. I texted with Coach Abby, who told me that if the humidity is too much, I should skip the speedwork and just get the mileage in.

I liked having an “out” but I don’t like using outs unless I have to. I didn’t feel the need to get out the door super early to beat the heat since there was no beating it that day. I was able to wait until my stomach started feeling better before heading out the door. Once I got outside, I began my 10 minute warm up. A very, very slow 10 minute warm up where I wondered how I could possibly do this.

But then it was time for the first mile and, well, I did it. My goal 1 mile track time is 7:00-7:05. While I never typically hit (or even come close) to my goal times in my track workouts, I have a little more faith in the mile over the shorter distances. One reason is because of my whole theory on why I am better at slightly longer speed workouts (a post on that is in progress) and the other reason is that I ran a 6:53 mile during a 5K a couple years ago.

But with the humidity and the fact that I haven’t hit any goal track paces except 2 mile, I obviously didn’t expect to hit my goal here, nor did I want to. I just wanted to put in all my effort and hopefully come out with a decent time despite the humid air. And I surprised myself!

Not only did I stick with the run and do my 3×1 mile workout a prescribed, I also ran very consistent splits (time-wise, effort wise the last one felt so much harder than the first it is ridiculous to me that they ended up being the same) and I’m proud of my pace! I would even be OK with this pace on a regular day, so for 95% humidity with oncoming rainstorms, well, I felt amazing.

(1) 7:39 (2) 7:40 (3) 7:40

While I’m always glad to finish the shorter track workouts, I only feel that amazing sense of accomplishment on 1 mile and above. This run put me in a great mood for the rest of my day.

The rest of my week’s training:

Week 9: July 14 – July 20

• Monday – Maintenance legs
• Tuesday – 10 min warm up, 3×1 mile (active recovery), 2 mile cool down (6.25 mi)
• Wednesday – Refine
• Thursday – 2 mile warm up, 2 mile tempo, 1 mile cool down
• Friday – 16 miles
• Saturday - OFF
• Sunday – 4 miles easy + maintenance legs

Total (running) miles: 31.25

Summary of Week 9 running:

Tuesday
Mile repeats (see above)

Thursday
This run was originally an intimidating, scary pyramid track workout. When it suddenly changed on my plan to 2 mile warm up, 2 mile tempo, 1 mile cool down, I asked no questions. I’m no idiot.

1 – 10:50 – warm up
2 – 11:02 – warm up
3 – 8:15 – tempo
4 – 8:14  – tempo
5 – 10:32 – cool down

The tempo miles were really hard. I’m a little neurotic (or is every runner like this?) and tend to go faster because I am so worried about getting too slow. By the end of the second tempo mile I was miserable and just pushing through to the end. I couldn’t imagine having to do more than 2 tempo miles on this day – but it’s so much better than that crazy track workout would have been. No complaints here.

Friday
I did my long run on Friday because we had to move our Cape Cop trip from August up to this Saturday (I’ll explain why in another post!). I took to the Twitters to ask if anyone else was running on Friday because I’d been struggling on my solo long runs. Katie NYC responded that she had her own long run, and asked me to join her in Central Park for some miles there and over the Queensboro Bridge.

Katie and I have tweeted sporadically, but never met. I get a little anxious about running with someone new because I can’t stand the feeling of forced conversation, but within one minute of running with Katie I knew this was not the case. She is awesome – outgoing, friendly, upbeat and we had so much to say! The conversation flowed easily throughout our full loop + reservoir loop + QB bridge and back run. The miles flew by and I felt pretty great the whole time.

I needed a good, long run with a friend and I am so glad Katie NYC happened to see my tweet, happened to be running and happened to respond. I look forward to more runs with her! And 16 miles is my longest run so far of this training cycle, so I’m thrilled I felt so great.

In fact, I felt so great that the rest of my day was completely different than my usual days post-long run. I normally am useless; exhausted, dehydrated, achy. I generally spend the rest of the day on the couch or in bed. But on this day, I had a full day after my long run. I got home, took my dog out, then headed back into the city to go to a few appointments and run some errands. I walked a LOT throughout the city and didn’t feel like I woke up at 5:00 am and ran 16 miles at all.

Even when I got home later on, I never crashed. Andy and I went out to eat at our favorite restaurant in the world, Razza, and I felt awesome the whole time. I’ve never felt so good after a long run before and I have no idea why this day was so different than usual – but I hope I have more like it!

Sunday
I moved Monday’s 4 mile run to Sunday for vacation scheduling reasons, and I ran this one around the streets in our neighborhood. I felt tired and sluggish, and was just doing what I could to get through this run. When I had 1.5 miles left, I ran into Andy walking Larry and decided Larry could use a run, too.

I took him from Andy, and he and I ran 1.5 miles together. I felt a million times better running with Larry. He is so funny when he gets this big smile on his face when he runs, and he made my run so much more fun.

When Larry and I ran a 5K

I still can’t get over how fast training is flying be – just 10 weeks to race day!

Do you ever feel so great after a long run it’s like you didn’t run for hours at all?