Week In Review: Feb. 27 - Mar. 4

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 Oakland Half Marathon

Grand Total: 42.11 miles

* 33 easy
* 9.11 speed work / fartlek

While I didn't get in every single mile I had planned, this was still a better week than I've had in a while. It's only the second week I've managed to top 40 miles in 2012, so you know. Progress.

Monday: Skiing / driving home; no running.

Tuesday: 8.5 easy. Ever have one of those runs where you swear the entire route was uphill & into the wind? This was harder than the 7 hilly miles in Tahoe! Wanted to get 10 but my sore foot said no way. Ah well.

Wednesday: ~3 (ish?) at SF State exercise physio lab (am) & 3.5 easy (pm) + karate & strength work. (You can read more about the metabolic testing at SF State here.) The easy 3.5 in the afternoon was all I had time for before karate -- just an attempt to get in some more miles -- which was just as well because I was WORN OUT.

Thursday: Rest day; switched with Friday.

Friday: 2 wu + 6.11 fartlek (3 minutes @ 10K pace + 1 minute easy, repeat 12 times) = 8.11. I really, REALLY would've preferred to have done this one on the track, but I didn't have my car or the time to jog there & back, so out into the 'hood it was. Pedestrians / lights / hills / wind / etc. meant it turned out to be more like 10K effort than really pace, but it was the best I could do under the circumstances. Had to stop twice to deal with the ongoing foot pain. If this keeps up, I see myself back in the podiatrist's office.

Saturday: 2 wu + 3 x 2 @ HM pace 7 easy. Again, wanted to get this done at the track, but we were in Paso Robles all day & got back to SF too late for that to really be feasible. So off I went into the neighborhood for some dark, easy miles. At least the foot pain left me alone!

Never hurts to spend a day / weekend here. :)

Sunday: 12 easy. Actually 14 on the schedule, but this was all the time I had (Sensing a theme this week, anyone?) once we got back from this weekend's wine tasting #2. (BTW, if you want to do some quality wine tasting without driving to Napa or Sonoma, hit up Ridge and/or Cooper-Garrod down in the Sunnyvale hills. CG does some REALLY nice wines in the $25-35 range, & if you're at Ridge, don't miss the Monte Bello blends.)

I ran down to Kezar Stadium & just ran as many laps around the track as I could until I was down to the amount of time I knew I'd need to run home. I chose the track instead of going through the park partly because the surface of the track is MUCH easier on my sore feet & joints, and partly because it's definitely where I run the most efficiently (flat, predictable, no pedestrians / lights / traffic / etc.) Amazingly, this run felt better and easier than anything else I've run this week, and remarkably not like a long run at all! I started off running low nines, gradually sped up around the track, & still felt good when I left, so ran low eights all the way home. :)

All in all, I'd say March is off to a reasonably good start. Hoping for mid-40s next week.