Weekly Update 3/22-3/28

I'm feeling stressed and busy....as always it seems these days. Papers for grad school have been cutting into my sleep. Anyhow, here's a quick update of last weeks workouts.

Sunday - 10 miles. It was a beautiful day for a run. I even got to wear shorts! For some reason my legs were feeling really fatigued and this 10 mile run felt much tougher than the 11.5 mile run a few weeks ago, i'm not really sure why.

Saturday - 5 mile tempo run. Crazy weather. It was super windy and I think I had a little bit of every kind of weather at some point during the run... Sun, then a brief snow, then a little rain, then sun again.

Friday - off

Thursday - 5.5 miles with 2 hill repeats. I was supposed to do a few more hill repeats, but had to cut things a little short since I didn't get out of bed quite early enough to get the whole workout in.

Wednesday - Got to the gym to find that boot camp class was canceled (it was kind of blizzarding outside), so I stayed and did about 45 mins on the elliptical, some sit ups and push ups.

Tuesday - 5 mile run with 5 x 3 min speed intervals during the run. This was an increase in speed intervals from the last few weeks, but it didn't feel as tough as I expected!

Monday - Body Pump at the gym

Weekly Milage Total - 25.5

Back from Cleveland and last weeks update

We were in Cleveland last week looking for apartments. It was busy, but a good trip. Dan got to interview for some jobs, I got to see Case Western and talk to some students from the program there, and of course we looked at lots of apartments. We found one and put a deposit down, so its nice to have at least one thing for the move settled! I even managed to get most of my running in last week, luckily it was a step back week.

Sunday - 7 miles
Saturday - 4 miles
Friday - 4 miles
Thursday - off
Wednesday - off
Tuesday - 5 miles
Monday - Body Pump

Weekly Total - 20 miles

Cleveland Tomorrow

This is not really running related. We are heading out to Cleveland tomorrow to look for apartments and get a tour of Case Western (where I will be transferring to). I'm nervous. I'm nervous that we wont find an apartment we like this trip and we'll have to try and squeeze in another visit to find one before the move. I'm sure it will be fine, but there is just so much uncertainty at this point in time. I am however looking forward to actually seeing the city we will be moving to, since I have never been there before!

Weekly Recap 3/8 - 3/14

Sunday - 11.3 miles (see post below)
Saturday - 4 miles with 10 min tempo run in the middle
Friday - 6 miles with 6 hill repeats
Thursday - off
Wednesday - Boot Camp class at the gym.
Tuesday - 5 miles with 3, 3 min intervals at 5K pace
Monday - Body Pump at the Gym

Total Weekly Mileage: 26.3

A very cold wet run today

I had an 11 mile run planned today. If I would have been smart I'd have checked the weather and possibly switched my runs this weekend and done my long run yesterday when it was 50 degrees and sunny. I was very surprised when I woke up to a rain/snow mix this morning! I waited until the snow let up and it was a light drizzle and headed out. The first half of the run was actually pretty pleasant. I do enjoy running in the rain. The second half of the run was much less enjoyable, it was more of a downpour. The last two miles home were the worst. It was sleeting and I was running into the wind, so little bits of ice were pelting me in the face. I actually debated ducking into a coffee shop and calling Dan to come and get me at one point, but since I was only about a mile from home at that point I decided to stick it out and actually ended up running about 11.5 miles.

I've been listening to Born to Run in audiobook form on my long runs. Today the contrast between my run and the runs they were describing in the book were funny. Obviously I was running nowhere near the ultra-marathon distances the book talks about, but they happened to be describing the run through Death Valley and the heat. It was funny to listen to when I was cold and wet, maybe mentally it helped me feel warmer! The book also started getting into the barefoot running phenomenon and how great barefoot running is for your feet. All I could think of, while running through puddles was, thank God for my Gor-tex Nikes!

Speed work

Today was the first time I have done my speed intervals outside in a while. I always forget how bad I am at pacing! I have never been any good at running a specific pace. When I go out for a run I tend to just run how I feel. If I feel like going fast, I do, if I feel fatigued I go slow. My plan today was to run 3, 3 minute intervals at 5K pace (8:00 min miles). I was all over the place! Part of the problem was that I didn't realize that I don't have my watch set to display both pace and time at the same time, so I had to keep switching between screens, but my pace was around 7 min miles. I tried to slow down a "little" and end up around 8:30 min miles. I could definitely use some work on running a consistent pace!

Weekly Recap 3/1 - 3/7

It wasn't the most consistent running week. This only reaffirms for me that I made the right decision in not training for a full marathon this spring. Life is just too busy right now! Why so busy this week? I was at a conference in Washington DC Sunday through Tuesday. It was intense! Monday was 7:30am - 9pm of talks, then going out to socialize and meet new people afterwards. I didn't get to bed until probably around 1am. Needless to say I didn't wake up early to get a run in before the talks started back up at 7:30 the next morning. Getting back into the swing of things at work left me completely exhausted, so I gave myself saturday off to sleep in and try to recover a little. I did manage to get my long run in, which is what I think is most important for training.

Sunday - 9 miles. It was a beautiful day to run! 50 degrees and cloudy, so the temperature was perfect. I managed to average about 9:40 min miles. I was pretty pleased with that, considering I don't try to push at all for speed on long runs.

Saturday - no working out, just sleeping in!

Friday - 24 SET class at the gym.

Thursday - 6 miles with 6 30 second hill repeats.

Wednesday - Boot Camp class.

Tuesday - skipped my planned 5 mile run.

Monday - off

Total Weekly Milage: 15 miles

Weekly Recap 02/22 - 2/28

It was nice to have a stepback week this first week back to training after being sick. This was the first week of adding speed training, which was exciting!

Sunday - I was leaving for a conference so I woke up early to do 6 miles outside before heading to the airport.
Saturday - 4 miles with 10 minutes of tempo.
Friday - 24SET
Thursday - 5 miles with 6 hill repeats
Wednesday - Boot Camp Class
Tuesday - 4 miles with 3X3 minutes at 5K pace with 1 minute of rest. I did 8:30 min/mile for the speed intervals, which might be a little slower than 5K. I wasn't quite ready to push it after being sick. It felt really good to get back to running though!
Mon- Off.

Total Weekly mileage: 19 miles