This week was a much-needed break from the intensity and mileage of the last month. This training cycle has had, by far, the most consistently high mileage I've ever had. I had two weeks of 80, a week of 72, and last week of 78, so this week, 70 with no double days felt like a big break. Here was my week of workouts:
Monday: 5 easy
Tuesday: 2k, 1600, 1200, 800, 400, 400
Wednesday: 6 miles with 40" strides
Thursday: 10 mile easy progression: 3 at easy, 3 at ~7:00, 3 at somewhat harder (not looking at GPS)
Friday: 8.6 (no watch)
Saturday: 8.6
Sunday: 20 miles. Second half harder than first. Last 4 miles pushing (ended up being ~6:35), 7:13 pace overall
Monday, the weather was as beautiful as you could imagine was possible for Seattle. It was 55 and sunny, with a slight breeze. B came for 5 whole miles with me, though he left me in the dust in the last 2 miles (wanted to do 7:15 pace or something, and I had held 7:30 for longer than I'd wanted to on an easy day).
Tuesday was a royal cluster, as seems to be the case every time I plan to do any trackwork anywhere but on CMU's track. I ran 4 miles up to a local high school, somewhat suspecting they might be having track practice, but hoping that by around 5 pm, they'd be wrapping things up. This was not the case. I don't know how big their high school is, but when I showed up, it looked like there were about 75 kiddos working out on it. Isn't this supposed to be an all-time high for childhood obesity? If so, why is their track team so huge?
Anyway, while I'm glad for the public health which is implied by this track participation rate, I was going to need to do something else. B met me there, and we drove back to the Burke Gilman trail. He went to the gym, and I (gasp) *put on my headphones and ran to Taylor Swift* with no idea how far my intervals actually were.
First, I feel very weird admitting to running with music outdoors. I've done very little of this: my treadmill workouts always come with an iPod, but outside running seems like a temple that I've never defaced by listening to music while running. Headphones are for hobby joggers, and people who want to be hit by cars, or make their butts look good by running, not for serious runners. But, as I've been slogging through 3 days of quality each week, often with 1 or 2 or even 3 of those sessions alone, I've been getting pretty bored of the easy-to-reach flat running path. I've found that I've lost some motivation, and it's hard to run faster than sub-6:30 pace without someone sweating next to you. So, I decided to try L's approach and got a $48 iPod shuffle. This workout was my very first one using the iPod, and I'd be lying to say it wasn't fun. It was. I had a lot of fun working harder than I'd have worked without the music. Listening to TSwift, and thinking about M's metal version of that song, really pumped me up for that last 400. And Third-Eye Blind's 10 days late made the 1600 go by much faster. I still don't plan to run on streets with headphones, nor do I plan to race or do easy runs with them, but I just might use them on hard workouts when I've been running alone a bunch. Ugh. I hate myself for this so much.
Also, when I say those distances (2k, 1600, 1200, 800, 400, 400), I don't actually have any idea how far/fast I ran, because I didn't have my Garmin. So I ran for 7:55, 6:15, 4:30, 2:50, 1:25, 1:22, all trying to do what I thought were the appropriate paces for those distances. No one will ever know how fast/far those intervals actually were...
Thursday's progression run was fun. Again, I used headphones, which were a good motivator to get out the door in when it was rainy and my legs felt heavy. After the first mile, though, my legs suddenly got really light and I just flew. I ran miles 2 and 3 in 7:10ish, miles 4, 5, and 6 in 6:50-7:00, and 7,8,9 at 6:38, 6:38, and 6:26, respectively. The whole thing felt really, really good, which was a nice surprise, given how tired and heavy my legs felt Wednesday (and at the start of this run).
Sunday, I went and met up with some people from Club Northwest at Green Lake, and ran 11 miles with them. After they were done, I settled in around 7:00 pace, until I was at 15 miles. From there, I sped up to 6:35ish pace for 4 miles, and took the last mile as a slower cooldown. For fueling, I took only maltodextrin in water, and my stomach felt awesome the whole time. Also, I noticed I'm pretty good at forcing my legs to run at a particular pace just by looking at my Garmin ever .25 miles or so. While this may not be a good race strategy, I'm considering wearing it for my race in April. I won't look too closely at the beginning, but I think after about 18 miles it might be nice to have a little screen telling me to speed up or slow down, rather than once every 6 or 7 minutes being reminded that I am either too slow or fast. I'm also really glad I'm not racing a marathon on dirt paths: I find it a lot harder to run fast on gravel than I used to. The last 12 miles were all on gravel, so I'm pretty happy with that pace.
This upcoming week, I am going backpacking Sat/Sun, so my whole week of training is condensed! We'll see how that goes...
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