National Marathon Week 11

This was a tough week, but amazingly I felt good for every workout. Next week is a recovery week to rest up for the last two weeks of the month which should prove to be extremely difficult. At least that's what I'm hoping for.

Monday: I was really sore from the weekend but luckily I only had 4 miles easy followed by 5 x 100 strides at the end. Did the 4 miles in 10:30 pace, but it wasn't easy and then the strides which actually felt good.

Tuesday: Still a little sore, but 100 times better than monday. Gotta love those recovery runs. The workout was 1.5 mile warmup, then 3 x 2 miles at 8:50 pace and 1 mile cool down. It was cold and drizzly. I had company for the warmup, and there were people at the track for the first two reps, but by the time I started the 3rd two mile repeat, I was by myself and the cold and rain were getting to me. I managed to do all 3 at 8:45 pace, but my cool down jog was only 1/2 mile instead of the full mile.

Wednesday: Met with the coach at lunch to go over the year plan so had to get both workouts in the morning. Did 35 mins of spinning on the bike while playing mario cart wii, then did a 20 min core workout.

Thursday: This was a 6 mile recovery/steady run. I didn't look at the details since all my recovery runs are at "comfortable" pace. Luckily today comfortable was a little faster than usual. Plus Erin and Vivian ran with Frank and I so the pace was a more lively 9:50 which included a 5:19 up half mile hill. Frank dropped out and did the 5.5 mile option and then we picked up the pace for the last mile to sub 9's to make up for the wait at the intersection. Felt really good on the hills on this one.

Friday: day off, yoga in the morning

Saturday: This was the 16 mile run at comfortable pace. Can 16 miles ever really be comfortable? I guess I'll find out when I do my 18 mile comfortable run in 2 weeks. This run went better than last week. I changed my walk breaks to be every 2 miles instead of every mile, this allowed me to get more into a rythm and relax into the run, without so many breaks. my ave pace for the whole run was 10:44 where last week it was 10:47. And I ran the last 3 miles without a walk break just like last week, but this week my last 3 miles were 1:10 faster. I ran mile 14 with Frank who was doing 8 and trying to average sub 10, after about a half mile I had to let him go as 9:25 was not what I wanted to do on mile 14, but I managed to do 9:48, then 10:07 and 10:08. Mile 16 felt better this week than 15 last week and my recovery after the run was faster as well.

Sunday: Easy swim, but legs are much better than last week. I actually felt good enough to do 5 mins of kicking.

I have a bit more confidence after this week, but the last two weeks of this month are still looming...

weekly mileage: 35