Eclipse! + Far too many time zones for one week (Eugene Half Week 6 of 8)

OK, so. Last weekend, I had to give a paper at a conference in Philadelphia, and being two weeks out from Eugene and really wanting one more chance to get on a starting line before then, I'd planned to Amtrak into Brooklyn on Sunday morning to run this 10 miler in Prospect Park.

Buttttt then the talk was changed from Saturday to Sunday at 1:15pm, and there was just no feasible way to run a 9:15am 10 mile race and get back to Philly in time for this talk. So.

What do we do?

We turn to the internet to see what else is around. And what do we find?

This cheeky little 15K race (that's ~9.3 miles according to The King's Mathematics) in central Pennsylvania on Saturday morning. 

Is it glamorous? No. But did I care about that? Also no! I really just needed to run a *sorta* long-ish tune-up race where I could practice HM effort and using all the mental stuff I've been working on in a situation that feels more formal than weekend long runs on my own in Golden Gate Park.

Race report coming soon!

In case you missed it:

Eugene Half Week 1
Eugene Half Week 2
Eugene Half Week 3
Eugene Half Week 4
Eugene Half Week 5

 ~*~*~ 🦆🦆 Eugene Half Marathon Week 6 of 8 🦆🦆 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 30.85 miles

🐌 Easy: 20.35 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 9.3 miles
🐎 Fast: 1.2 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 66% vs. 34%. 

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

Fatigue is piling up but so is fitness (Eugene Half Week 5 of 8)

In case you missed it:

Eugene Half Week 1
Eugene Half Week 2
Eugene Half Week 3
Eugene Half Week 4

 ~*~*~ 🦆🦆 Eugene Half Marathon Week 5 of 8 🦆🦆 ~*~*~

Grand Total: 38.6 miles

🐌 Easy: 30.85 miles
🏃🏻‍♀️ Moderate: 6 miles
🐎 Fast: 1.75 miles

⚖️ Easy miles vs. fast/moderate miles: 79.9% vs. 20.1%. 

Blue = daily strain, red/yellow/green = daily recovery

Big Miles + Radical Rest (Eugene Half Week 4 of 8)

Like most weeks, lately, this one was stressful and exhausting. Maybe not as much as some weeks. But still, I spent so much of the time feeling tired, both in terms of feeling fatigued (runs are hard, hard to motivate off the couch to accomplish basic tasks such as feeding myself) and sleepy (not always getting enough sleep, fighting off daytime naps).

By the time I finished Friday's 7-mile easy run, I was already thinking forward to Sunday's nontrivial long run workout (15 miles including 3 x 2 mile reps at half marathon effort) and strategizing about how I was going to make sure I got the most out of it. Thankfully, this past weekend was one of those rare and beautiful ones where I had absolutely no concrete commitments beyond keeping myself & the cats alive and doing the bare minimum necessary to keep our living space some basic level of functional/not gross.

The strategy I settled on was radical rest, which included the following pillars:

• After running on Friday evening, feed & hydrate self/cats ➡️ sit on couch & watch TV ➡️ go to bed early.
• Saturday ➡️ sleep in as much as possible ➡️ feed & hydrate self/cats ➡️ mostly sit on couch, feed/hydrate as necessary / carb load like a mother ➡️ go to bed early.
• Saturday ➡️ sleep in as much as possible ➡️ hydrate/consume moar carbs (& feed cats) ➡️ coffee ➡️ friggin' *crush* this long run workout.

Now, this *mostly* went to plan, though I cannot honestly say there were *no* deviations: