CIM WEEK 11 of 18: Texas Half Marathon #1 (+ my sister's wedding!)

Cool western fonts are the best.

This big news this week, of course, was OMG MY LITTLE SISTER GETTING MARRIED!!!! Of course there were a ton of professional pictures taken, but I managed to snap a few decent ones with my phone.

Mom putting on the finishing touches

Reception

Littler sister/MOH giving the toast

First dance w/ Dad

WHAT THE WHAT.

We flew in on Thursday & I pretty much went immediately from the airport to the bachelorette party & didn't get back to the hotel until nearly 3:00am. The rest of the weekend was similarly jam-packed with various wedding-related events and responsibilities. It was so much fun and super exciting and of course ridiculous amounts of weeping and sniffling occurred Sunday afternoon and evening before and during the actual wedding. We flew home Monday afternoon, completely exhausted, and I've barely been a functional person since.

Of course, all this meant that any running (or sleeping) kind of had to be shoe-horned in around the festivities however time allowed. I know I was making jokes last week about the luxury of cutting back from 57 miles to "merely" 50ish, but it turns out that, oh right, 50 is still a fairly high number for me under the best of circumstances! So, I'm sort of amazed I actually managed to do it. (Because obviously the top priority was still wedding stuff and there was no way I was going to worry about miles at the expense of being a good sister/bridesmaid.)

And, though I was exhausted come Monday morning, I have to say that I feel a lot better than I expected, especially given how that half marathon on Sunday went down (race report here).

* * *

Grand Total: 50 miles

* 34.7 easy
* 5.3 speed
* 10 race pace(ish)

Monday 10/10: Karate. Guys, my strength work game lately has gotten so weak. SO WEAK!!

Tuesday 10/11: 2 warm-up, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 20:00 @ MP + 0:30, 6 x 200m / 200m jog, 2 cool down = 5.3 speed/9.3 total.

On the one hand, this was kind of a "recovery" speed workout after Sunday's fast finish 20, which I needed--I was tired and my legs were definitely feeling sluggish. But add to that the fact that the workout was a 200m sandwich (the last workout I did before my knee gave out) and the track was closed for a field hockey game--meaning I had to do the 200m's on the concrete Upper Track of Doom--I was not not NOT feeling excited about this workout. In fact I was kind of terrified.

In any case I got through the whole thing with only a little discomfort (running the curves DEFINITELY irritates the right knee a bit) with nearly all the 200m's between :41 & :44 (5:30-6:11). The concrete track isn't marked so I had to do them by a combination of GPS & landmarks, so there's probably not much point in comparing them to when I've run 200m's on the track. But, the last time I ran them up on the concrete like this, I was running them in :44-:49 (6:11-6:36), AND I hadn't just run a fast(ish) finish 20 miler.

So that's something to feel good about, I guess?

Wednesday 10/12: Rest.

I thought about trying to get a few easy miles out of the way after work but my legs were giving me some serious yellow flags so I didn't bother. I was glad we'd cancelled karate for the night because I barely managed to get myself packed. #woefulwednesdays

Thursday 10/13: 8 easy.

Since I didn't do anything on Wednesday, I got up early to squeeze this one in before our flight to Texas. In the grand tradition of Thursday runs, I started this one with next to zero enthusiasm but it got a bit easier as it went on. It was hotter than I'd hoped it would be that early, but I finished feeling kinda-sorta 60-40 okay. (No knee troubles, which, let's be honest, is the main thing these days.)

For the bachelorette party, we started at Painting With a Twist (where you bring your own booze & drink while you paint), & then had a pole dancing class.

Sisters

It turns out pole dancing is shockingly fun!

The woman who looks like she knows what she's doing was the teacher.

Friday 10/14: 15 long 10 easy.

Originally my plan had been to use the half marathon on Sunday for my 15 mile cut-back "long" run. (It's hilarious to me at this point in marathon training that 15 miles ever qualifies as "long." I feel like at this point I don't even have to be *conscious* to jog 15 easy miles.)

But, that was before I realized that Friday's scheduled tempo run was 14 miles with 10 at goal marathon pace. Since all my Texas running besides the race would have to be done on a treadmill, I decided I'd rather zone out on a treadmill for 2+ hours than run 10 race pace miles on one, so I swapped the days, intending to do 15 easy on Friday and the 14 with 10 at race pace on Sunday. But it turned out I didn't really have the time for that on Friday, so I just did what I could & pushed the rest to Saturday.

The carrot: Delicious post-dinner cocktails at Proper in Fort Worth.

Saturday 10/15: 7.7 easy.

I'd been hoping to do just a quick 3-4 easy shakeout on Saturday, but running out of time the day before meant those leftover miles got pushed over. Part of me wondered if maybe I should have just let them go & spent the extra 40-50 minutes off my feet before my big workout Sunday, but what's done is done.

Rehearsal dinner Saturday evening

Sunday 10/16: 1 warm up + 13.1 race + .9 treadmill = 10 tempo-ish/15 total + WEDDING!!!!

I'll write more about this [***update race report here***] but let's just say those race pace miles did not exactly go as planned, but under the circumstances I wasn't terribly surprised. Essentially I ended up filing this day and really the entire week under "Eh, you worked hard and got the miles in, and it was what it was." So, I'm more or less at peace with it.

Next Sunday is my last tune-up race before CIM--Folsom Blues Breakout Half in Folsom. I'd like a nice fast race, obviously, but mainly I'm just hoping it goes better than Oakland Half did before Eugene!

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CIM 2016 Week 1 of 18 - It's On

CIM 2016 Week 2 of 18 - Escape From NY (Barely)

CIM 2016 Week 3 of 18 - A Discount Code to Share (+ back on Strava!)

CIM 2016 Week 4 of 18 - 18/day, 47.5/week, 205.5/month.

CIM 2016 Week 5 of 18 - That cutback feeling

CIM 2016 Week 6 of 18 - french toast, trail shoes, & a little race fatigue

CIM 2016 Week 7 of 18 - Big week & feelin' fine!

CIM 2016 Week 8 of 18 - Knee Troubles :(

CIM 2016 Week 9 of 18 - Improvement on the knee front!

CIM 2016 Week 10 of 18 - Train kept a-rollin' (+ free shoes!)