12 weeks to Eugene

This week was my first "week back", and by that, I mean it was the first week that I've gotten to do real speedwork and real miles in months! Since I had a goofy half marathon the end of January and a 43-mile all-day run the following week, I've not really gotten in the training I usually do. My coach deemed it appropriate to focus me for the last 12 weeks of pre-marathon training (finally, finally, finally!) I am apparently really bad at base training; running slowly 5 or 6 or 7 days a week wears on me mentally.

Anyway, here is what my week entailed:

Monday, 6 miles
Tuesday, 6 mile warmup, 8x1:30 hill sprints, min max HR 175 (11 miles total)
Wednesday 7 miles AM, 7 miles PM
Thursday 9 miles AM, 3 miles PM
Friday 3 miles warmup, 5 x 1 k at 3:30-3:40 (9 miles total)
Saturday 8 miles easy
Sunday 20 miles with 10x1:00 at 6:00-6:10 pace

I was so, so excited! This was my first 80 mile week since August, and I got not one but *two* quality workouts. Here are a couple of highlights:

Tuesday's hill sprints:
M and I hooked up early to get some extra miles in before the main event, since I was supposed to burn off some glycogen before the hills. The Hounds were somewhat divided, with a bunch of people working on the indoor track rather than freezing their butts off outside. So, a smaller than usual group of us headed off to run the hills in Schenley. I found it impossible to get my heart rate up to 175, probably because the hill flattens out for the last 1/4 of the "hill", and even when I was all-out sprinting my HR maxed out at 173. Anyway, it was freaking freezing, so I'll blame my slowness not on my legs, but on the course and the weather.

Thursday's doubles:
Ugh. I felt really good running Thursday AM, but by midmorning at work, I had a splitting headache and felt pretty terrible. I worried maybe I was ramping up too quickly. I drank a liter of water, fell asleep in my office Yahoo pod chair, which looks something like this:

After a 30 minute power nap (and a chocolate croissant), I felt much better. I wonder if I wasn't well enough hydrated, or electrolyted, or fueled... who knows. Anyway, my stomach still wasn't super happy in the evening so my 3 on the treadmill were slow and arduous.


Friday's 1ks:

I had set up to meet up for this workout with the Crazy Russian (whose new haircut looks like this:

                                      
), and go over to use the indoor track. B was going to meet us there. However, after we ran up the hill to the track, I noticed swarms of people surrounding the entrance of the fieldhouse. I asked a woman in the vicinity what was happening, and she told me there'd be 5000 people there to watch a wrestling match. Why anyone would choose to spend their Friday night watching a bunch of men in unflattering spandex unis is beyond me, but  I read this to mean the track would be unavailable for public use. The outdoor tracks were still covered in ice, so those weren't an option either.

So, we ran back down to get Ivan's cell phone to let B know we weren't going to be able to run at the track. He picked us up, and we went over to Highland Park to do out workout on the reservoir.  By the time we got up there, it had been at least 30 minutes since I stopped "warming up". So, when I started the workout, I was a little sweaty and freezing.

The loop is roughly 3/4 of a mile around, just long enough to do a 1k and jog around a bit before starting the next. Each time I made the loop, however, I had to brace myself and pray to the Running Goddesses that I wouldn't lose my balance on the couple of strides across the few patches of black ice. To make matters worse, superstorm Nemo-inspired winds attempted to bowl me over, both on the icy patches and along much of the backstretch (I wasn't doing the hard stuff on the frontstretch to balance it out, either...) Luckily, I managed to do the whole workout unscathed and was under 3:40 (though on the slow side of the 3:30-3:40 range) for all 5 reps. My legs definitely didn't remember how to go that fast; I felt like I was sprinting for parts of the workout, but my heart felt pretty good the whole time.

Not much to talk about Saturday, except for the awesome cajoling L and I got running in Spandex in 33 degree weather ("Stay orange, I love orange", and "Girls, it's really good to see legs again", are a sampling of the heckles we received in the roughly 1 hour of running).

Sunday, I mishmashed L's workout with mine (and ran with L and M for a good bit of my run). So, 8 miles easy, 5x .5 mile at 6:30, .5 mile at 7:00, then a couple "easy" (still roughly 7:00-7:20), then 8x1:00 at about 6:00 pace. So I did way more speedwork than I was supposed to do, but felt nice since the weather was beautiful, and I was able to go a little faster than normal. I took Gu at 5.6 and Honey Stinger at 12.5, and actually drank a good bit of water for the run. Around 18.5 I got pretty tired, but wasn't totally bonked.  Weirdly, though, we left my house a little after 1:00 pm and didn't get back until almost 5:00; I guess we left a little later than we thought, and took our sweet time getting started down on the river trails.

All in all, the week felt like a pretty good training week! Mileage is up to 80 for the first time in 2013, and had a bunch of speedwork. It was fun! I hope I didn't break myself to badly this afternoon, because I suspect this upcoming week is going to be harder :)