Highlight of the Week: That it’s over. Ha! Just kidding. The classes I taught were a lot of fun this week!
Monday | March 23, 2015: 7 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 29°/29°, Time: 1:08:30, Pace: 9:47 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Strength: plate circuit + plyo/core, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good
Tuesday | March 24, 2015: 10 m run (w/Kelly) + teaching strength class
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 15°/13°, Time: 1:40:44, Pace: 10:04 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: tired w/heavy legs, BUT! No wind!!!
Strength: bench & kettlebells, + plyo, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good
Wednesday | March 25, 2015: rest
Thursday | March 26, 2015: 6.5 m run (w/Kelly, incl. 2×2)
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 33°/33°, Time: 1:02:20, Pace: 9:35 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: good, but need to figure out pacing
Friday | March 27, 2015: teaching strength class + 12 m run
Strength: plates + plyo/core, Difficulty: medium, Felt: okay but disoriented
Loc: Round Lake to Grayslake, Temp: 24°/28°, Time: 2:08:27, Pace: 10:42, Difficulty: easy, Felt: physically good, mentally miserable
Saturday | March 28, 2015: teaching cycling class (21.6 m) + teaching fitness boxing + 3 m run (w/Dawn)
Loc: Efit, Bike Time: 1:06:25, Pace: 19.5 mph avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: mostly good (sore from massage)
Strength: boxing and body weight workout (step), Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: Grayslake, Temp: 28°/30°, Time: 29:38, Pace: 9:52 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Sunday | March 29, 2015: rest
Notes:
- I start these weekly training posts drafts the Sunday before the week starts, and usually type as I go. This week, my first bullet point in the draft was that I’m at that point in training where stupid little things are making me super irritated (like the wind, and the fact that I don’t seem to get in to a groove until 6-8 miles in to a run), and how I thought that meant it was the perfect time to start my taper. Ha! I didn’t know how right that would turn out to be! I actually QUIT my Friday long run because I was just SO over the cold wind. I wanted to do my last 20+ mile long run for the ultra, and headed out in the wind, knowing it will be at my back on the way back. And seven miles in, I mentally gave up. It wasn’t worth fighting it anymore. I’ve done the training, and have dealt with nasty freaking weather all winter and don’t need to go out there and make myself mentally miserable over it. So I ran to Steven’s work and rode home with him. Ha! And felt much happier at home, getting some things prepped for my Saturday classes, than outside feeling pissed about the wind.
- And… now that I’ve got that negativity out, my week was pretty good! I taught some extra classes at the studio, got to run twice with Kelly (and it was hardly windy for both runs!), got a massage in prep for my two upcoming races, and ended the week with a really good run with Dawn!
- The speedwork Kelly and I are doing has switched over to being half marathon focused (I had it 5K focused until mid March, which is when I thought I would race a 5K… oops) and I really need to work on my pacing for half marathon pace. On Thursday, we ran two sets of two miles at just over half pace, and we ran the second mile 20 seconds faster than we were supposed to on each set. I’d like to be more even!
Great job! I struggled with the cold and wind so much as well, that I only ran outside once, and skipped my long run today because I just didn’t have it in me to battle the weather.
At least this week it’s warmer with the high winds! 🙂
I totally hear you on being over the battle against the cold wind. It sounds like you absolutely did the right thing in pulling back on Friday a little bit. Feeling good mentally is just as important as the physical training, in my opinion. Glad that you were able to run to Steven’s work and ride home with him – that works out perfectly!
I’m with you on the cold and the wind. I’m so over all of it and not loving the fact that we still have below freezing weather 🙁 I only ran inside this past week and just flat out bailed on my Sunday run when I saw that it was going to feel like temps in the 20’s all morning.
The temps were kind of a shock after we had a warm week here! We typically get one week of spring in Chicagoland, and I think we already had it. LOL. But it’s gonna be warmer here, with the winds this week, so that should help! I hope it’s better there, too!
Sometimes you gotta know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’em! It’s probably not helpful for your training to be miserable in the wind. 🙂
I am so glad last week is over too! Haha! Here’s to this week being much better! I think I’m even ready to add speedwork back in. Booyah!
Speedwork, booyah indeed! I think I am going to aim for 8-12 800s. Ha ha. EEEK!
UGH the wind! So with you on that. I did 18 miles in really bad wind yesterday and it was miserable.
I also struggle with pacing during pace-specific workouts. I trick I tried recently that seemed to work really well is that I set my Garmin to auto-lap at .5 miles instead of miles. This way I know midway through a mile if I’m on track and can use the last half of the mile to adjust. It eliminated the urge to look at my watch all the time, which I’ve found really screws up my pacing. I also start intervals too fast, which makes it harder to be even than if I were to start them a little slow and ease into goal pace.
Hmm, I wonder if I should try that! The only issue is that I am not so good at the maths, so I would have to remember to look up my half split before starting the run. LOL