Week in Review: June 18 - 24

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. :)

SF Pride Run 5K Race Week!!

7 weeks to Summer Breeze 10K

10 weeks to Santa Rosa Half Marathon

So there were miles run this last week, which makes it, y'know, different from / an improvement over the previous one. Plus I ran a 5K on Saturday that I was waffling & being whiny / dramatic about and managed to not totally embarrass myself, so win.

Grand Total: 20.6 miles

* 15.25 easy
* 2.25 speed
* 3.1 race

Monday: Karate + strength work

Tuesday: 6 easy. Dagnabbit, I was going to get a run in Tuesday if it killed me. When I'm feeling icky about my mileage or worried about finding time to run later in the week, I know I have a habit of trying to compensate by running farther and/or faster than I really should. In a rare moment of self-knowledge and foresight, I made a conscious decision beforehand to run only my usual six-mile loop and to keep the pace nice & easy. I will admit that I was unreasonably, irrationally relieved to find that my "easy" pace had not magically slowed by two minutes after my 9 day hiatus. Yes, the heel pain was back post-shower, but at least it stayed away during my run.

Wednesday: Karate. Unfortunately fire on the Embarcadero -> shit show on the Bay Bridge -> got there late & missed strength work.

Thursday: 2 wu + 3 x .75 @ 5K pace + 1.75 cd = 6. Whaaaaah?? Angela actually did a speed workout for the first time since [muttersindistinctlyunderbreath]?? The hell you say. Seriously, this was my first trip to the track in over a month, and WOW, there is no part of me that is even remotely in 5K shape. I did run them all at more or less the pace I ran at Big Bear Run a month & a half ago (6:41, 6:39, 6:34), but let me assure that there is no way I will be running that pace on Saturday. I had no illusions that any of this would make me faster by then; I just wanted a few short intervals to remind my legs how to go fast.

Friday: 4 easy. Not surprisingly, I was still feeling sluggish after the speed work, but I really wanted to get a few miles in for the sake of consistency. Plus I had some new kicks to take for a spin:

Thanks, Mom. ;)

Saturday: 1.5(ish?) wu + 3.1 race = 4.6 total. On Saturday I ran the PrideRun 5K in Golden Gate Park, which was awesome / terrible, depending on how you look at it. (Either way, better than expected.) Race report coming soon.

So running, in any amount, has been incredibly difficult to fit in these past few weeks. When the last of my contracts finish in August & I finally start my normal person job full-time, I think it will be easier. Right now I am driving for 2.5 hours every day in order to make it all work, which will only be the case through the end of July but pretty much means that if we have any sort of evening plans at all, there is literally zero time in the day for a run unless I'm willing to head off into the dark at 10-11 pm or give up a precious hour or two of sleep & get up early. Part of me really wants to get all WHATEVER-IT-TAKES-ish & just make it work, but I am already doing that with my three jobs scattered around the Bay Area and I'm not sure I can be that hard core about more than one thing at a time. So I'm trying to do what I can, and not panic too much about the fact that I may lose some fitness this summer and (*sigh*) Santa Rosa may not end up being the USATF-certified sub-1:40 I had hoped it would be. At least through July, I sort of feel like if I can manage to run 20 miles a week, that'll be doing pretty darn well.