Last week was a solid week of training and I felt really strong. The weeks I spent in November and December slowly layering hill repeats and strides are starting to pay off and come through in stronger-than-expected intervals and a really solid long run. My focus this week has shifted to making sure I take care of the little things, like continuing to do band work (bridges, clamshells etc) as well as some key dynamic stretches throughout the day. I realized last week that I'm just not drinking enough water either. I think most days last week I was mildly dehydrated so I've added this to my training log and will be tracking hydration this week.

This is how last week stacked up:

Monday

Run: ~6 miles with no watch. I forgot to charge my watch and went out watch-less. This was more of a recovery run because Sunday's treadmill workout had race effort miles in it.

Tuesday

Run: 4.0 miles on the treadmill; ~40min; 1 mi @12%; 1mi @ 10%; 1/2 mi @8% and then 1.5 mi @ 0% to finish up

Strength:

10 min mobility/stretching

15 min core and hamstring prehab

squat/plank

pull up/ single leg KB deadlift

rev. fly/tri-kickbacks

Wednesday

Track Workout: 1 mi warm up, 3x1mi w/ 2:30 standing rest; 1 mi cool down

Mile repeats are always a little scary. I knew I wanted to negative split this so I went out conservatively and tried to run the last two strong, but not hammer them in anticipation of running a race on Saturday. The goal was to run hard, but in a controlled manner so I wasn't goin all-out. What was really great was the fact that I negative split the 800s in the last two miles running 3:05 and 3:04 and then 3:08 and 3:03. I feel like I achieved that. My splits: 6:16; 6:09; 6:11.

Thursday

Run: 7.03 easy; 1:02; 8:55/mi

Felt pretty good during the run but tight after. Spent a good amount of time rolling and stretching on Thursday night.

Friday

Run: shakeout 3.5 miles; 31:32; 8:56/mi

Saturday

Run: Long Run Workout 4 miles warm up, 6 miles @ Half Marathon Effort, cool down

12.73 total miles. Only have data for first ten: 10 miles; 1:15:13; 7:31/mi

I was excited for this run. After the rain on Friday we lost all our snow and the temps were in the 50s when I got up on Saturday. I donned a pair of shorts and a t-shirt and headed out. A mile into my run I contemplated turning back and grabbing a pair of gloves, but I started to warm up so I didn't think to hard about it (in hindsight I really wish I'd gone back and gotten gloves!!). The warm up went smoothly, four hill miles before kicking into what felt like half marathon effort. I didn't want to go too fast, knowing I had six miles to do, but I also knew I'd be faster than my treadmill pace last week of 7:18. I rolled through the first mile of tempo in 6:58 and thought, "Oh God! I'm going to die if I keep this up!" In mile 2 I reigned it back in and slowed down (7:08) and then in mile 3 I decided to just roll with what I was feeling, which was really good! I rolled through three in 6:52 and thought well, "I guess this is it." Mile four felt solid too (7:00). But then my watch died right as I was getting into mile 5 and the screen went to power save mode. One thing I appreciate about my Epson ProSense is even if the battery is low it doesn't die completely, the power save mode still logs miles and records splits "behind the scenes." Even though I lost my data feedback, I still knew I'd at least have my last two splits. Then I turned around and realized I was running into a headwind. Ugh. I pushed through mile 5 and the watch beeped, but I didn't see the split. Mile six was a BEAST, I entered into the portion of the road that passes under the highway and it is basically a wind tunnel. The gusts were at least 20mph and one big one knocked me back so much that I stopped. "Gah! I can't do this!" I said aloud to myself on the side of the road. I considered turning around and running in the opposite direction just to finish that last mile with less resistance. But then I thought, No! I can do this. So I kept on running headlong into the wind as fast as I could go. I had no idea what my pace was or if I was even close to where I wanted to be (7 min pace). When the watch finally beeped I stopped. Saved the run (I could have cared less if logged my cool down) so I wouldn't lose my tempo splits. I looked back over mile 5 and 6, the two miles I hadn't seen the splits for and they were 6:57 and 7:10 (which included my little stop on the side of the road where I didn't stop my watch). Man! If I had just kept going I would have hit 7 min pace for that last mile! I saved my run and continued on my cool down and promptly realized I was FREEZING! I'd seen that the temps were forecasted to drop while I was out running, but I think the drop coincided with exactly when I started my cool down because I went from sweaty and warm to absolutely frigid. I knew I had about 3 miles to run to get home and I did my best to pick up the pace, but my hands were frozen. I tried running with my hands in my armpits-that did not work. I tried blowing on my hands. I stopped several times and rubbed my hands and forearms. No luck. I contemplated stopping and taking my compression socks off and putting them on my arms. But my hands were so numb I wasn't sure if I had the dexterity to be able to complete the task. So I just kept running. Last week I ran in arctic temps and I wasn't nearly as cold as I was on Saturday when I was caught out running when the temp dropped 15 degrees! Yikes. But I did feel good about hitting paces I didn't think I'd hit for a few weeks, so that was a huge WIN!! I spent the rest of the day sitting by the fire trying to warm up.

Sunday

Run: 5.1 recovery run; 44:52; 8:43/mi

Easy run. Felt great. Properly clothed. Sun was shining. It was a beautiful day to be outside!

Week total: 43.3 miles

Feeling good about the week ahead!

-Sarah

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