Highlight of the Week: Feeling fantastic on my long run!

Monday | March 16, 2015: 6 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: Millennium Trail, Temp: 56°/60°, Time: 54:53, Pace: 9:08 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: the hills and heat
Strength: Kettlebells & Bench, Difficulty: easy, Felt: meh
Tuesday | March 17, 2015: 13 m run (w/Kelly) + 13 m bike
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 43°/36°, Time: 2:11:44, Pace: 10:08 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: challenged by the wind
Bike Time: 44:34, Pace: 17.5 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Wednesday | March 18, 2015:  rest
Thursday | March 19, 2015: 5 m run (incl. 5×800)
Loc: hood, Temp: 38°/37°, Time: 42:55, Pace: 8:35 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: harder than it should have
Friday | March 20, 2015: teaching strength class + 3 m run
Strength: Kettlebells & Bench, Difficulty: medium, Felt: so so (getting a cold)
Loc: Millennium Trail, Temp: 51°/51°, Time: 28:57, Pace: 9:39, Difficulty: easy, Felt: super annoyed by the wind
Saturday | March 21, 2015: 19 m run (w/Rachel)
Loc: Home to Red Robin, Temp: 42°/45°, Time: 3:11:28, Pace: 10:05 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: mostly good!
Sunday | March 22, 2015: teaching fitness boxing + 4 m run
Strength: boxing and body weight workout (step), Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: hood, Temp: 34°/34°, Time: 34:49, Pace: 8:42 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: amazing

Notes:

• The wind was such a bear this week… yay, start of spring! It was actually windy enough on my long run Saturday that I stopped at mile 7 to put my arm warmers on. That doesn’t seem odd for a normal person, but it’s odd for me to be wearing arm warmers with a tank when it’s in the mid 40s! Eh, it will be like this for the next month or longer. I’ll deal.
• My long run was awesome though – Rachel was in town for the concert so I had company! We ran from my house to Red Robin, and Steven met us there and we had lunch. And even better, Rachel and I had pretty even splits and felt good the whole time! We’re just under three weeks until our ultra, woot woot!
• I made sure not to do speedwork the day before my long run this week, and that made me feel MUCH better! The hills didn’t feel as challenging as last week, either. I miss the snow, but one nice thing about it being gone is that I can run my hilly routes!
• Even though I haven’t done any of my goal races yet this year (5K or half marathon), I’ve kind of been thinking about what I want to do after them, in the late spring. I keep thinking, “hmm, maybe if the Wisconsin Half goes really well, I will keep training and do a marathon a few weeks later.” But, yeah. I typically ramp down after the Wisconsin Half, and, who knows what the weather will be like in late May! We shall see!

Link to Training Week 282