Week in Review: Apr 23 - 29

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. :)

1 Week To M-A Big Bear Run 5K

3 Weeks To Windsor Green Half Marathon

Grand Total: 29.22 miles

* 18.22 easy
* 6 HM pace
* 5 speed/intervals

This was going to be a SUPER impressive 48-50 mile "peak" week (insofar as I ever really have peak weeks). But then it wasn't, thanks largely to yet another PACKED weekend socially & quite a lot of real, actual income-generating work towards the end of last week. What I CAN say is that I gave it a solid effort, and the two runs I missed were truly, honestly due to just not having the time (and sort of expecting ahead of time that I wouldn't) and not to being lazy or wussing out or anything. This weekend was Don's birthday, so we had a ton of fun celebrating with friends in various ways, and Saturday was yet another obligatory wine tasting trip. (Don't you love that we *have* to go drink crazy/fancy wine like every weekend? It's a rough life sometimes.)

Monday: Karate + 8 easy. I stayed up too late Sunday night & was sooooo tired that I almost skipped out on this run. And karate. Then I kept going back & forth on doing one but not the other. In the end I did my run, then went to karate 20 minutes late.

Tuesday: 2 wu + (3:00 @ 10K pace + 1:00 jog) x 12 = 8.22. I dare you to throw this workout into your 10K or HM plan. I just. Freaking. DARE YOU. Potentially the toughest speed workout I'm doing these days.

Wednesday: Karate + strength work + 4 easy. Recovery day. Exciting, because my glutes and hips were hella sore from that bitch of a track session. Also, dailymile, when are you going to learn how proportionality works? Does the scaling here make sense to anyone? #mathteacher

Thursday: 2 wu + 6 @ HM pace + 1 cd = 9 Deal with effing life. Sorry, running.

Friday: 14 easy 2 wu + 6 @ HM pace + 1 cd = 9. Um. Yeah. Best run of 2012 so far? I think so.

Saturday: OMG MOAR WINE TASTING!?!?!? Afraid so. Back in March, we headed down to Ridge Vineyards in Cupertino for the First Assemblage tasting of the '11 Montebello blend. I have recommended Ridge before as a must-do in both Sonoma and the South Bay / Santa Cruz Mountains area & I'll recommend them again -- if you're in either place & doing some wine tasting, hit them up. They have some truly amazing things on offer. Although it's some of the best American wine I've had, I would not bother with the Montebello unless you are into shelling out major bucks; we only get to go to the tastings because Don's parents are in the Montebello club & get it at a discount because they are in the industry. But they have a ton of other very tasty, very reasonably priced wine that's worth checking out.

Saturday was the Final Assemblage tasting, so we drove down, tasted a bunch of Montebello (including a '77, which I think is the oldest wine I've ever had!), tried a bunch of other stuff they had open, then drove back & started shopping/prepping/cleaning for Don's birthday BBQ on Sunday.

Ridge Montebello tasting room

View from the ridge

'77 Montebello. Have some sediment.

Up on the ridge

Sunday: 6 easy Party hardy. The BBQ was tons of fun. (I made homemade ice cream, which was pretty darn tasty if I do say so myself!) At this point the 14 miler was a lost cause, but I thought I might have a little time in the morning to sneak in an easy six. No such luck as we ended up having too much last minute cleaning & prep work to do

So, not perfect, but as Not-So-Average A was just saying, sometimes spending time with friends & loved ones is worth missing a few runs. As you can see by the dailymile widget on the sidebar there, getting to 2000 miles for the year is becoming a trickier & trickier prospect (we are 33% of the way through the year and I am only 27% of the way to my goal), but sometimes one just has to prioritize, and it would be hard to be unhappy with the choices I made this week. :)

Next Sunday I'm racing my first 5K in two years down on the peninsula -- Menlo-Atherton Big Bear Run 5K. I really have no idea what to expect; my schedule just called for a 5K time trial two weeks before racing the half, so it'll be interesting to see what happens.