Another Running Week Down

Today officially marks 4 weeks until Disney Princess, and with that I wrapped up my 8th week of training, although it was really only my third complete week, even though I've trained over the last 8 weeks, before the last 3 weeks I had been skipping at least one run per week, and it was usually my scheduled long weekend run, I would just find myself too busy to complete it and life would get in the way. But, with crunch time and no more distractions, I've been able to really focus and just run. This week my training plan had me doing 16 miles, two easy 4 milers and a long run of 8 miles, but I decided I needed to add in some speedwork to make up for some lost time, so I turned the second easy 4 miler into a speedwork 5 miler, and ended the week with 17 miles.

Wednesday I began the week with an easy 4 miler on the treadmill, it was still pretty cold out, so I retreated indoors. I played my usual game of increase the speed at every mile and then go all out and sprint at the end. It works well for me and keeps the run interesting.

Thursday, the weather decided to become warmer, 50 and sunny and I just had to run outside. I miss running outside so much. As much as I am making peace with the dreadmill, and trying to keep it interesting, nothing beats being outdoors and having the fresh breeze on your face and seeing the trees and grass. I knew I had to go outside for my speed repeats. I was supposed to do 1 mile warm up, 1 mile at 9:45, 0.5 mile recovery, 1 mile at 9:45, 0.5 mile recovery, and 1 mile cool down. Well as you can see from my splits, I decided to go all out and ignore the recoveries and cool down. I tried, I really did, I slowed down, but I just had so much, momentum I had to keep going. And holy moly do you see that second mile split?! 9:14! What?!

Saturday it was 67 degrees, sunny and downright warm for running, I almost wish I had worn my shorts and tank top instead of capris and tshirt. But alas, I had an 8 miler on tap and there was no better way to get it done than outside in such awesome weather. When I got in my car it said it was 67, and the sun was bright and high in the afternoon, by the time I finished the run my car thermometer said it was 71 outside, which I believe, it was quite warm, like I said, shorts weather! Glad I had the sense to take my handheld water bottle with a Powerade/water mixture in it, I still downed it all and had to refill at about 6 miles, I was just so hot. I also refueled with my favorite Chocolate Outrage GU at mile 4, which is why you see that mile 5 split is so high, because I decided to walk to eat my GU and drink my drink, that was my only walk break, which I really didn't want to take, but at that point I was just so hot and my legs were getting really heavy/tired.

I had some weird potty issues going on too, I desperately needed to pee 1.5 miles in, which considering I always drink a ton of water, especially the morning before I run, but I always make sure to empty my bladder before beginning, but I guess it wasn't enough, so I had to stop, luckily I run in a place with plenty of public restroom facilities.  When I started back up again I restarted the Nike+ but forgot to unpause the Garmin, I realized after I had gone about .35 miles that it wasn't ticking along and finally unpaused it. But I know that I'm stubborn and I wouldn't be quitting until the Garmin said 8 miles, so I would have to run that extra 0.35 mile. I kept along my merry way going along and sipping on my Powerade/water mix when I needed it, even though it was warm and not very thirst quenching. Finally at about 6.10 miles according to Nike+, 5.75 miles according to Garmin, I stopped again because I needed to pee again, plus I was having some left sided abdominal/ovary pain, no doubt caused by my endo, and my bottle was empty and I wanted to refill it with some water. So I ducked into the restroom and also refilled my bottle with some cold water from the fountain and then kept going. I ran another 1.25 miles without incident while chugging down the water, finally when I hit the last mile I decided I was going to push my limits and go all out. I've heard it's good to practice sprinting, especially at the end, that this can help you power through to the finish line, so I've really been trying to incorporate this into my runs lately, to finish strong instead of finishing feeling dead like I used to. So I turned on some fast paced music and just ran as fast as I could. You can see from the split, this strategy worked, as it was my fastest of all the 8 miles at 9:47. All in all I think it was a great run. I just wish I didn't have to stop those two times for restroom breaks and that my left side abdominal hadn't have been bothering me during the run, then I think it would have been perfect. Pacing was great though, if I can just go a couple seconds faster on race day, I will meet my goal of PRing the race at 2:15:xx.

So wrap up for the week:
Wednesday: 4 miles, 41:34, 10:18 av pace
Thursday: 5 miles (speed repeats), 48:49, 9:46 av pace
Saturday: 8 miles, 1:23:25, 10:25 av pace