W2W Week 3 of 13: Do People Still Wear Newtons?

This was a tough week for us for reasons I won't go into detail about; just, know that things were very hard for a few days and I missed one of my easy runs. Otherwise it was a solid training week, though, and one of the nice things about running is that it can serve as reasonably effective therapy in the immediate wake of a tragedy.

#therapy

In other news, I switched into a new pair of long run shoes. The background is, for anything over about 12 miles I prefer something with a little more cushion like a Brooks Launch or Saucony Kinvara (as opposed to say my Altras or Brooks Pure Drifts), but I also find that for me, once a pair reaches about 200 miles they're not as comfortable for long runs anymore.

I'd been doing my long runs in a pair of Brooks Launches but they hit 200 miles last week. I've been making a concerted effort to wear out the existing shoes I already have rather than opening fresh ones, so I started digging around in my closet to see what pairs I had in there that were cushey enough for a long run but still had less than 200 miles on them, & came up with these:

For those of you who are not running shoe historians, those are the 2012 Newton Distance, which I got on clearance (the only way I could ever bring myself to pay for Newtons) back in 2013, wore on and off until I messed up my hip, and then sort of forgot about them. But hey, they had less than 100 miles on them, so I figured why not? Let's refresh the memory & give 'em a whirl.

Pros: They fit, they have a nice, wide toe box (the thing that bugs me the most about the Launches & Kinvaras, though they otherwise fit my foot well), they're fairly light (6.9 ounces each), and they have enough cushion for 2+ hours of pounding on concrete.

Cons: They're really stiff, and I'm still not into the weird forefoot lugs. (Mainly, their purpose seems to be getting rocks stuck between them.) None of these are deal-breakers and I can totally see wearing these till they wear out, but I don't think I would go out of my way to buy them again.

(My only other pair of Newtons was the Motus, back in 2012, which I remember being more flexible and a nice performance shoe, though they wore out weirdly quickly.)

~*~*~ WHARF 2 WHARF: Week 3 of 13 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 40 miles

* 16 easy
* 5.75 speed
* 4 threshold
* 14.25 long

Monday 5/13: a.m. strength / p.m. 6 easy

Tuesday 5/14: 2 warm up, 3 x 800 @ 5K pace / 2:00 jog, 20:00 @ MP, 3 x 800 @ 5K pace / 2:00 jog, 2 cool down = 9.75 speed

Wow, this workout destroyed me. I've done it lots of times before with no trouble at all, and was still able to complete it and hit the paces, but MAN. Those back-end intervals? ROUGH. If it weren't for my watch showing me 6:50-6:55ish pace, I would have sworn I was hobbling along at closer to 11:30. My guess is that it's the fact that I was doing it on the tail of two 40+ mile weeks when most of my weeks in the preceding month were closer to 30ish per week, if that. I'm just over here trusting the process.

Wednesday 5/15: a.m. strength Rest

I'd planned to go to the gym Wednesday morning, but Tuesday's speed workout (which was not a particularly tough workout, I would not have said) somehow just broke me. I was pretty much a zombie for the rest of Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning went something along these lines:

[5:30am alarm goes off] "JFC there is .No.WAY. I am getting up and going to the gym to lift weights right now." {resets alarm for 6:30am}

[6:30am alarm goes off] "NOPE, still feel like complete and utter death, working from home today." {resets alarm for 7:30am}

[7:30am alarm goes off] "Ugggghhhhh time to do some work, I guess." {20 minutes of staring blankly at computer screen pass} "Screw it, taking a sick day."

Thursday 5/16: 6 easy Unplanned rest day.

Friday 5/17: 3 warm up, 4 @ HM pace, 3 cool down = 10 threshold

I almost skipped this workout as well because it just seemed so unimportant, but then I thought I would actually feel better if I went out and did *something*, so I did. HM pace workouts are often on the tough side for me, even when it's, say, 2-mile intervals with rest intervals, but I kind of thought, "You know, screw it, I'll try, & if I can't do it, I can't do it." But I DID do it (with breaks only for traffic lights and quick water stops), even with some steep hills. Yes, it was hard, but it felt perhaps just a bit LESS hard than usual, which was reassuring. Splits = 7:29, 7:14 (downhill), 7:31 (uphill), 7:26.

Saturday 5/18: Rest

I thought about trying to make up that missed Thursday run on Saturday, but that would have meant five days of running in a row with no rest, including two workouts and a long run, and my body was definitely giving me those no-seriously-please-rest-and-absorb-the-workout-you-just-did yellow flags.

Sunday 5/19: 14.25 long

I tacked on a little extra to Sunday's planned 13 miler to hit 40 for the week, which is a little less than planned, but still okay.

Long run windmills ftw

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So, yeah. Hoping for a better week, but that won't be difficult.