Update: Threshold intervals STILL suck.

I don't know why but a small part of me somehow half-expected that doing the same threshold interval workout as last Friday (2 warm up, 3 x 2 miles @ HM pace / 2:00 jog, 2 cool down) would be a little easier, since I'm now on my *third* post-base training workout and have done a little strength training. Ha ha ha, WRONG! Nope, this workout still sucked, and if anything, it sucked even harder than last Friday.

I guess technically my average pace on the intervals was about one second per mile faster, but that's hardly anything to brag about. Turns out that it takes more than a week for your anaerobic fitness to improve!

From experience, I know that this is *always* how it is when I first go back to doing faster workouts, but getting halfway through even one mile at this pace and feeling like I want to die does sometimes make a person wonder how on earth they ever managed to run FASTER than that pace for 13 miles in a row. And shooting for 15 seconds per mile faster than THAT just a few months from now?

In those moments I just try to remind myself about how throughout my entire CIM training cycle this past fall, there was really nothing besides the work I was putting in to suggest that I would be able to run a marathon at 8:04 average pace. Pace workouts were terrifyingly hard, and I still remember running those 10 marathon pace miles in Texas at ~8:20/mile & feeling like I was about to fall over and die. And then lo and behold, CIM '17 ended up being not only the fastest marathon I'd ever run BY FAR, but also the easiest. So I'm trying to do that thing where you put in the effort and don't really worry too much about what happens in training, and just trust the work on race day.

* * *

PRIDEMEET 5K WEEK 3:

Grand Total: 41.4 miles + 1 hour strength

* 16 easy
* 5 speed
* 6.4 tempo/threshold
* 14 long

This wasn't quite the week I'd hoped it would be mileage-wise, but it also wasn't terrible, so I give it maybe a B-. I'd hoped to be around ~48ish in this last "big" (for rather small-ish definitions of big) week before beginning to cut back for PrideMeet, but lo, life happened, and sometimes you get what you get, and you happily take it because you remember times when despite your best efforts you couldn't string together two 40+ mile weeks to save your life for months on end.

Monday 5/22: Strength work

Back squats (60 lb, such wee little bunny legs!), seated rows (50 lb), push-ups, step-ups (30 lb), & jack-knifes. (Or is it jack-kniVES? Also, when referring casually to multiple half marathons, do you call them 'halfs' or 'halves'? QUESTIONS.)

Tuesday 5/23: 2 warm up, 6 x (200m / 200m jog), 2 @ ~8:20ish, 6 x (200m / 200m jog), 2 cool down

The good: After a chunk of base training I'm usually running 200m's in the 0:45-0:48 range & then ratchet down to 0:39-0:42 by the time my goal race comes around, but on Tuesday I ran them all between 0:40-0:43, so that was unusual and cool. The bad: A kids' track meet was finishing up when I arrived so I had to do the first set up on the concrete upper track and tweaked my left ankle a bit. (The faster you run, the more your ankles have to flex, and my left one has been pretty stiff for as long as I can remember. This is why I really, really try to limit most of my truly hard running to the track.

Wednesday 5/24: Karate

Sadly I failed at getting up for strength work this morning. I'd also planned to run a few easy miles but my ankle was too painful. Boo.

Thursday 5/25: 8-10 easy Rest

Alas, work stuff got out of control & ended up sucking up my entire day. Double boo.

Friday 5/26: a.m. strength / p.m. 2 warm up, 3 x 2 miles @ HM pace / 2:00 jog, 2 cool down = 10.4 total.

Failed AGAIN at getting up for strength work (there are reasons but they are not important) but did at least manage to get my threshold intervals in. This was the same workout as last week, which reminded me that I don't like having the same workouts in back-to-back weeks. If I have a workout I haven't done in a while, then it probably won't look too hard and I'll just do it. If I just did it, though, then I still remember just how hard it is and spend the whole day dreading it. I like it better when they're spread out more.

Saturday 5/27: 8 easy

Flex day, and since I didn't run Wednesday or Thursday, I wanted to get in at least a few easy miles (which...turned out not to be all that easy at all. I blame that on the threshold intervals.).

Sunday 5/28: 14 long

Long/hard threshold workout + skipped rest day + long run = one of the hardest long runs (though not really *that* long) in recent memory. Thankfully things improved mile by mile and by the time it was over I was no longer feeling completely awful.

On the road again for work this week (back to Hawai'i, as it turns out), so we'll see what I manage to make happen.