This week was a fantastic week training wise.
Monday – cross training. Swim 1600m. This week I did a 400m warm up, followed by 800m of various drills, focusing mostly on form and bilateral breathing. Afterwards I did a 400m cool down.
Tuesday – tempo run. 8 miles total. Goal: 1 mile easy/6 miles @7:59/1 mile easy. It was FINALLY a cool morning again and it showed in my mile times. 9:19, 8:02, 7:55, 7:57, 7:54, 8:00 (inclines on this one), 7:54, 8:55. Averaged 7:57on the tempo portion. Admittedly, the tempo part felt harder than I thought it should considering I’m shooting for an 8:00 average half marathon on Saturday. Still, I killed this run so win.
Wednesday – speed work. 1 mile warm up, 12×400 @ 1:39 with 1:30 rest in between and 2:30 min break at the halfway point. 1 mile cool down. I looked forward to the shorter distance speed work this week and we had a rather large turnout at the track this week. People were FLYING (and I think not resting the full 1:30) and it was hard to not want to jump in with the larger group. As it was most of my splits were faster than written: 1:34, 1:37, 1:37, 1:37, 1:37, 1:37 (not sure I could do that again if I tried), 1:36, 1:34, 1:36, 1:36, 1:33, 1:22. Virginia challenged me to a race on that last one and my competitive nature couldn’t say no. I even said NO I AM NOT SPRINTING and I did anyway.
Thursday – active rest day. Resting two full days before the Kiawah Triathlon served me well so I decided to do it again this time around. I suppose maybe “rest” isn’t the right word because I still took the twins for a nearly 3 mile walk, but I wasn’t running, biking, swimming, or increasing my heart rate too much so I counted it. Plus this:
Friday – actual, legit rest day. No wait, it wasn’t. I did 30 minutes of yoga because my quads were tight from my little unplanned 400m race on that last lap. I also spent the day stretching like crazy and then took an epsom salt bath and slathered muscle cream on them before bed. I went sleep hoping they’d feel better in the morning. #don’tracebeforeraceday
Saturday – long run, but a cut back week. 13 miles. Also the Sweet Tea Half Marathon. Goal pace for plan was 8:50 but it was a race so lets be realistic. If I’m signing up for a race I’m racing it. My ultimate goal was a 1:45 finish or an 8:01/mile average. I ran a 1:45:06 4 years ago, hadn’t really come close since and was starting to wonder if maybe it wasn’t doable. It started to feel like a realistic goal again recently after running weekly speed work and following this plan. My quads cooperated well (yay!). My pyriformis acted up a little (boo) but I FINALLY got my speed back! Stay tuned for a recap.
Sunday – cross training/active recovery day. I considered a “recovery run” but my pyriformis is still acting up and tomorrow’s massage couldn’t come at a better time. I did 50 minutes of yoga and made myself refrain from doing anything else. My sister and I took the twins to the playground and thoroughly enjoyed some slide static hair.
8 down 8 to go!
Journey To the Finish Line 
November 16, 2015 at 8:28 pm
Congrats on your new PR at Sweet Tea! I can’t wait to read the recap of it. You’re doing great in your training and the 400s were super fun on Wednesday night, too 🙂
November 16, 2015 at 8:29 pm
Now time for a faster goal! 🙂 thanks!
November 16, 2015 at 8:30 pm
You can do it :).
November 24, 2015 at 2:49 pm
Wow, awesome training week, I really need to be more diligent about my training, especially getting in some cross training, I feel like I have been slacking!