National Marathon training week 14

Let's see, I can summarize this week in 5 words...
Holy Crap that was hard!

So here we go
Monday: 5 miles flat and easy. This was the easiest workout of the week. Only did 4.5 but at 10:04 pace and it was flat and enjoyable. Ran with cindy on black creek trail.

tuesday: my track workout was 6 x 1 mile ( 400 jog recovery ) getting faster each odd lap. Coach called and suggested I go in the morning since it might rain in the late morning when I normally go. It was really hard that morning to get going. The 1.75 mile warmup was tough, my legs were tired, my knees hurt and I had no energy. Luckily this wasn't a fast pace so i still felt I could handle it. I told Coach B that I was going to change it to 2 x 2 miles and 2 x 1 mile so I could get done quicker. My first two laps were at marathon race pace, or 9:50 / mile after those two I decided to skip the recovery and start the next set of 9:30 both of those went well two, I was in a groove, my hr was doing well and I was listening to endurance planet podcasts to take my mind of the boringness of running 30 laps by myself. so it ended up being 1 x 4 miles, then I did a recovery which I almost skipped, but was so happy I didn't. the next set was 2 x 1 mile at 9 min pace which on the track is usually very easy for me, but not today. The first I did ok, but the second was really hard. This is 10k pace so at mile 8 I guess it's supposed to be hard. I survived this one.

Wednesday: since this was the second hard week in a row I only had back to the core and no cycling this week. It was of course a hard class and my tired legs didn't help. My abs were doing fine, but whenever the set called for using the hamstrings for hip flexors I just couldn't do it.

Thursday: morning, a little sore in the abs, but since I really couldn't do the class as I should it wasn't bad. Had a 6-7 mile run today and I wanted to hit my 40 for the week so I had to do 6.5 since I only did 4.5 on monday. Started off really hard again, but after about 3 miles i started feeling better and finished off fairly strong so I had some hope for my 20 on the weekend. That night Erin texts me that we are meeting Lauren at breakfast at 11 so I have to come up with a route that starts and stops at cary cafe so I don't have to worry about rushing after the run is done.

Friday: day off, find route, but it is on turkey creek trail, I ran turkey creek once during my last marathon training so I knew it was hard, but figured it was doable and now would be the best time to do it and reep the benefits. aka get stronger for it, without sacrafising recovery.

Saturday: Still not doing great on energy, but still had to go. Picked up Erin and headed out. The first 9 miles of the run went really well, we were on 10:40 pace when we hit turkey creek and were doing good on the hills. Turkey creek really took it out of me and had to walk many of the hills, when we got to the spillway my legs just died. After a short break at the bathrooms I started off for the remaining 4 miles just hoping to survive. I left early thinking Cindy and Erin would catch me soon enough. Got about 1 mile and Cindy came beside me and said Erin was taking the short cut and was walking. I said I was going to whole way, but then turned around and saw Erin right behind so I waited for her. Earlier in the run I was telling her how I wasn't hung up on killing myself for one workout, but here I was ready to do it for this one. She asked what I was going to do so I told her, my brain says go long, but my body is screaming shortcut. She said she would do what I did and as long as we stayed together we could make it. Some blood must have made it back to my brain and I remembered what I said earlier and when we got to the shortcut spot I said shortcut. It saved us about 3/4 a mile and I really needed it. I think this run will really help in the end, but do not want to do that again. I think the loop from cary cafe is good, but I'll need to see how many miles if we the skip the turkey creek part before adding it my list or "normal" routes. I took two alleves and ate a big awesome breakfast, then went home, had more coffee and off to the ballet. came home and went to bed early.

sunday: knees are better this week than last, but muscles are much more sore. Did an easy swim with a lot of pulling and breaststroke and nothing that got my heart rate up too high. The pool was 90 so it felt great. Then did some yoga in the water that really helped. I knew trying to do this on land would not work as I would be spending too much energy staying upright and not enough getting the position right to get the benefit from it. I must say the yoga in the pool was awesome and really helped my hips loosen up. Then the girl joined me in the pool for some fun.

weekly mileage:39 - not the 40 I wanted, but still a record for me.

next week is a recovery week for me and I need it.