SRM WEEK 15 OF 20: The Dudette Abides

It's kind of incredible to me that in three more weeks I'll be tapering. I feel like with most marathon training cycles in the past, I'd get to the halfway point & be like GAWD TAPER CANNOT COME FAST ENOUGH. But this time it feels more like, really? Already? Maybe it's just because I've had this race on my mind for nearly a year now, so although I've officially been calling it a 20 week cycle, mentally it's been more like 50 weeks.

Work- & sleep-wise this week was kind of a shit show, but somehow I managed to get all the miles in, including the second of three 20+ long runs. And if I wasn't excited about last week's warm & sunny 21 in the upper 70s & full sun, let me tell you how thrilled I was when I got up this Sunday & the weather app on my phone read 86F. (This reminded me that I'd meant to do the whole Osmo pre-load thing but totally forgot about it Saturday night; I did the 30 minutes pre-workout dose but I'm not really sure how much good it does without the initial dose as well.)

I definitely made a bee-line from my oven of a neighborhood down to Ocean Beach, where thankfully it was a little cooler & there was the occasional breeze. Because of the temperature difference I ended up doing laps of the west side of the park rather than the east side as usual; of course, there is a reason I don't usually lap the west side, and that's because it features some really long, big hills that range from unpleasant to truly WTF (or that at least feel kind of WTF once you're 2+ hours in on a hot day).

How hot was it? People were swimming. In the Pacific. IN SAN FRANCISCO.

In retrospect, I don't know if this was the greatest idea. Yes, it was slightly cooler, but man, those hills took a lot out of me, and by the time I got to mile 15 I was definitely having one of those "I just cannot even" moments. (But actually, more like, "I just cannot even. Yet, I continue to anyway." So it was kind of a mental repeat of that for the last hour.) Not gonna lie that I got through the last mile by counting down blocks. (1 block = ~.1 miles.)

So yeah. Part of me wants to be like, "This run was stupid hard," except that I feel like that's less relevant than the fact that this run was probably exactly what it was supposed to be: Hard like last week, except even harder, given that it came on the heels of a higher-mileage week, a long speed/tempo session two days before, and another 21 miler just a week before. On the other hand, though, I think it was maybe a little easier mentally.

On the plus side, in spite of the fact that it was hotter & I was probably sweating more & drinking just as much or more, I never got the sloshy stomach action, so maybe the Osmo pre-load did something? The only other real excitement was tripping over a curb 3.5 miles in & wiping out spectacularly by the Conservatory of Flowers.

If you're going to nearly face-plant & lacerate the crap out of your knees & hands, though, I wholly recommend doing so in front of a tourist equipped with anti-bacterial wipes. Even then, I'm pretty sure I had blood dripping down my legs on & off for the next hour or so.

~*~*~SRM WEEK 15 OF 20~*~*~

Grand Total: 47 miles

* 16.5 easy
* 9.5 speed/tempo
* 21 long

Monday: Rest

This was the day that work hell started. It was also the first day I woke up almost completely unable to put weight on my feet barefoot. That was not cool.

Tuesday: 2.65 warm up, 10 x 200m @ 5K pace/ 200m jog, 1.85 cool down = 7 total

Speed work at Kezar with SF Track Club. (Though...I have to say that this workout felt either too easy or too short or both. I feel like if I was going to run 200m's I should have been running them faster than 5K pace & probably more than 10. Ah well.)

Wednesday: strength work

Again, karate was foiled by work. But also my feet were killing me barefoot again, so I'm not sure whether I would have ended up going. Also, for all that Tuesday did not feel like all that hard a workout, I was REALLY sore in the adductors & hips.

Thursday: 8 easy

Work & lack of sleep were killing me by Thursday afternoon and oh man. How badly did I NOT want to do this run? I was nodding off as I finished my work day & actually decided that I needed a nap before there was any chance of my finishing a run without running into a lamp post or tripping over a curb & face planting spectacularly. (Plenty of time for that on the weekend.) I was still pretty sore & so the beginning of this run felt AWFUL (like seriously...I think my first mile was not even sub-11), but it got a little better & by the end I no longer wanted to stab myself in the face.

Friday: 2 warm up, 2 x 1200m @ 10K pace / 1:30 jog, 30:00 @ GMP, 2 x 1200m @ 10K pace / 1:30 jog, 2 cool down = 11.

At this point in the week I was so sleep deprived & exhausted that it was *almost* (but not quite) funny. Leaving work I was kind of halfway between dreading this run and being sort of indifferent & resigned to it. Like, "Of course it's going to suck. And...?" But the weird thing was that it didn't. I mean, the first intervals uphill & into the wind, sure; that sucked. And none of the tempo parts were easy. But my brain just felt kind of numb to & distant from it, like it was sucking but I kind of didn't really care that it was sucking. And afterward, I actually felt pretty much fine. Way better than after Thursday's run, anyway!

Saturday: Rest

Sunday: 21 long

Same overall mileage next week, but a cut-back on long run day--only 16 miles. So luxurious!!