Week in Review: May 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. :)

1 Week To Windsor Green Half Marathon

Grand Total: 31 miles

* 23 easy
* 8 HM pace

My standing mileage goal this year has been to run at least 40 miles every week. Well, so much for that; apparently my life prefers that I alternate 40+ weeks and sub-40 weeks (and sometimes sub-20 weeks, unfortunately). Maybe in Quarter 3 I'll be able to up it to two 40+ weeks followed by a sub-40 week. That's me; CRAZY ambitious.

Monday: Karate + strength work; recover from this.

Tuesday: 2 wu + 8 @ half marathon pace + 1 easy. I was nervous I wouldn't be recovered enough to run this workout, but it was AWESOME. Though, in retrospect, this plus the 5K might have taken more out of me than I realized, given how the rest of the week went.

Wednesday: 4 easy + karate & strength work. 7-8 on the schedule, but with 2 miles down, my legs were like, "Listen, chief. If you ask us to do this, if you insist, we will do it for you. But we'd just like to point out that we've worked REALLY HARD for you lately & given you two AMAZING runs in a row. Also you're about to go do 1.5 hours of martial arts, and a speed workout tomorrow. So....you know. Your call." At 3 miles I knew what the call needed to be. Dragged myself to 4 and was sooooo fine with calling it quits.

Thursday: 2 wu + 4 x 5:00 @ 5K pace Recover from Wednesday's INSANE kick workout at karate. Had it been up to me, this is not the workout I would have picked to do days after a 5K PR race & my longest HM pace run of this cycle, but what can you do.

Friday: 2 wu + 4 x 5:00 @ 5K pace I was having some serious pain in the Achilles tendon areas after about half a mile. By 1.5 miles, it was REALLY bad. I should've stopped then but I decided to try to finish 2 if at all possible. I don't really think it's an injury; I get tight there sometimes, & ran pretty hard earlier in the week. I'd also spent more time than usual standing & walking in dress shoes in the previous two days, so that may have also had something to do with it. 9 days out from the race I decided the intervals were not worth tempting the injury fairy.

Saturday: Skiiiiiiinnnggggg!!!! Saturday was our last day in Tahoe for the season, which was a ton of fun. Late in the spring they close at 1 pm, so on the drive back home I was all like, "Maybe I could get a few miles in this evening..." Getting out of the car several hours later disabused me of that notion. Um, no. NOT going to happen. On the plus side, running keeps my legs strong enough I don't get sore from skiing, even though I only do it a few times a year.

On the summit at Alpine. It's hard to tell in this picture, but Don is wearing a T-shirt and I am wearing a sports bra under a rain shell. It was probably ~65-70° and gorgeous. :)

Sunday: 14 easy. Since the beginning of the year, I have had 14 milers scheduled on various Sundays and not ONCE have I been able to get one done. 12, yes, repeatedly, but never 14. Today, a week out from Windsor Green half, I had 12 scheduled, but I didn't have much going on & considering how low my mileage had been for the past few days, I decided to go for 14. I am pretty sure I ran the last 4 miles or so too fast (ie, sub-8), but I felt strong and fresh all the way to the end. Hopefully this won't have ruined my chances for a good race next Sunday. :)

Given everything I put my legs & cardiovascular system through this week (5K PR race, super-fast peak HM pace run, hardcore kick workout, a solid day of skiing, & longest run of the year thus far), I feel like 31 miles is completely respectable. I want to be sure I'm completely rested & refreshed for Windsor Green next Sunday, so odds are good I will cut my mileage this coming week even more than I'd planned to -- probably just two short "quality" workouts, a few easy shakeout miles on Friday, and the race on Sunday.