Week In Review: Nov 7 - 13

This is my weekly training journal. Including it in the blog gives me a little extra accountability in the mileage department & helps me stick to my schedule. :)

3 Weeks to Cal International Marathon

Race Week!!

Wow. I think this is my most belated training journal EVER. As I've mentioned, I've been fighting burnout pretty hard lately, so I haven't been so gung-ho in the last couple of weeks either to run OR write about it. Nevertheless, here is my training journal for the week leading up to Clarksburg Half Marathon (race report here).

Monday: 6 miles easy. After taking the weekend off, I finally felt like I had a little spring in my step again. I did my usual six-mile loop & kept it slow & easy. Also, on Monday night I went to karate & figured I'd just "take it easy" (stupid stupid stupid). Instead, I pulled my right hamstring. I don't know when it happened, but by later that night I knew something was really wrong, & Tuesday morning I couldn't walk properly. I was Not Pleased.

Thursday: 5 miles easy. After not running on Tuesday or Wednesday in order to let my hamstring potentially heal, I met up with a group of bloggers at the Ferry Building for a short, easy run along the Embarcadero. I jogged the half mile to the BART station & back, then about four miles with the ladies. Thankfully my hamstring seemed to have gotten over whatever I'd done to it, which was HUGELY reassuring.



Jana, Katie, Jessica, Alyssa, me, Aron, & Kristen

It was really nice to have some runny buddies that day -- I had been kind of freaking out about Clarksburg & about my hamstring, & doing a little social running definitely helped me calm down & relax a little. This was also when I found out that Katie & Jessica were running the Clarksburg 20 miler!

Friday: 4 miles (2 wu + 2 @ HMP) This is my usual workout two days before a race I care about -- 2 easy miles, followed by a dynamic warm up & 2 miles at race pace. My previous week's HMP run was crap, so mentally, I really, really needed these two race pace miles to feel good, which they did. Yes, it was pouring rain, but the pace felt easy, and I didn't have any pain (hamstring, shin splints, or otherwise). Yay!

Sunday: 14.7 miles (1.6 wu + 13.1 race). So not the race I'd hoped for; if you've read my race report, you know I kept a 7:40 pace for a little more than 6 miles, then had an asthma attack that resulted in stumbling through the last 7 miles in crisis mode at ~8:36 pace. There is no shame in this; I have never in my life run so fast & so far with asthma. Plus, you can only be so upset about freak occurrences like asthma attacks that you can't control. I think I did come out of it with a lot of positive mental benefits, though (see the race report). And I decided that I will ABSOLUTELY be carrying my inhaler for CIM!

Grand Total: 29.7 miles

Respectable for a race week & dealing with an injury for 2 days. Recovery is now the name of the game -- CIM in 3 weeks!