I run how I feel

In light of my day yesterday I thought my runners world quote of the day was quite fitting today:

"Everyone who has run knows that its most important value is in removing tension and allowing a release from whatever other cares the day may bring."
-President Jimmy Carter

I did my 5 miles with some speed intervals yesterday, which did help me somewhat de-stress. I think I'm going to have some sort of nervous break down if at least some things surrounding this move are not resolved at some point this week though!

I'm really bad at pacing myself and I just tend to run at whatever pace feels good on any particular day. Even back in high school running track and cross country when I was the only senior on the team my coach never put me as the "pack leader" so to speak because of my inconsistency with pace. Yesterday made me realize that anger/stress = fast Molly. My intervals were supposed to be at 5K pace, which for me is about 8 min miles. Definitely ran them at about 6:55-7 minute miles. So I guess the good thing about all of this stress..... It makes me run really really fast.

This morning was a little sad. I canceled my gym membership, so it was my last morning going to boot camp with my workout buddy. It's sad to be wrapping things up and ending things here.

I. Am. Stressed.

Warning. I'm in a cranky mood and I just want to complain. Moving is always stressful. Moving in to a new state in the middle of graduate school is a whole lot more stress than I ever imagined. We are making this move because my Mentor for my PhD dissertation took a job in Cleveland and had I decided to stay in Colorado I would have lost 3 years of work and had to start over in a new lab. That being said, then came the decision of which school to actually be a student at (either way I would have physically been in cleveland... confusing I know). After looking through my options it seemed that transferring to Case Western was going to be the best decision. However, having already completed all of my course work here in colorado, I really did not want to have to re-take anything once I got to Case. My transcripts have been "under review" since March! Colorado needs a resignation from me by the end of the week and I still don't know #1. IF i've been accepted at case or #2 what classes (if any) I will need to take from Case. Grrrr.

We also don't have movers yet. Case Western is paying for the move (Awesome!), but they have yet to tell us which company they are approving to move us. The move is 18 days away and I still don't feel like anything is any more in place than it was 6 months ago.

To top it off, Dan is having no luck on the job front. He's applied for over 70 jobs and received only 1 interview. I'm not really entirely sure how we are going to pay the bills on my graduate stipend.

I just want some good news on something. Anything!

Hopefully my 5 miler tonight will help me burn off some of this stress.

Weekly Recap 4/19-4/25

This past week was my highest weekly milage for 1/2 training. It went fairly well, but I am definitely excited for the taper! My legs have been feeling sluggish and sore for the past few weeks, so i'm looking forward so some lower milage and some stretching and hopefully feeling more refreshed come race day. I've also been feeling slow lately. It's been really difficult to keep up my pace on my long runs. This week was no different for the long run, but I did manage to do my shorter runs at a pace I felt happy with.

Sunday - 12 miles. This was a miserable run. I'm tempted to say my most miserable run of training. I think some of the long runs I did in snow were more enjoyable. The weather was terrible! I did an out and back route and yet somehow I was running into what felt like a 30 mile wind THE ENTIRE TIME. The first half of the run I managed to run at about a 9:20 to 9:30 pace that I was happy with. The second half, in addition to the wind, it started pouring rain and my pace definitely started to slow. The last two miles of the run I was just praying for the wind to stop and trying to keep moving my feet forward. I was exhausted afterwards, but at least it's done.

Saturday - 6 mile tempo. Beautiful spring weather to run in and I felt pretty conformable keeping my tempo pace up.

Friday - Rest

Thursday - 6 miles with 6 X 1 min hill repeats.

Wednesday - Boot Camp.

Tuesday - 6 miles with 3 X 5 min at 5K pace. The speed hurt, but I was able to keep up a 5K pace for all of the intervals, which I was happy with.

Monday - Body Pump.

Total Weekly Milage - 30 miles

Weekly Recap 4/12-4/18

Despite the fact that last week was a stepback week, my legs have been feeling really sore and sluggish this week. I'm hoping that it's just part of the final build phase of training and that the long taper will have me refreshed and ready to run fast come race day. I've noticed my mile times for my long runs have gotten slower, which is a little discouraging. Earlier in training I was running 11 miles at 9:30 min/mil and feeling very comfortable, this past weekends 10 miler I could barely hold 10 min miles. Maybe it's just an off week.

Sunday - 10 miles. Beautiful day. Ran at one of my favorite spots. I felt a little sick when I got home though, I think I was out in the sun a little too long. I am super sensitive to sun/heat and probably should have gone a little earlier or later in the day, my own fault.

Saturday - 5 mile tempo. My legs actually felt really good for this run and I was able to hold 8:30 min miles for a full mile.

Friday - rest

Thursday - 6 miles with 6 x 1 min hill repeats.

Wednesday - Boot Camp class at the gym.

Tuesday - 6 miles with 2 x 5 mins at 5K pace.

Monday - Body Pump at the gym.

Total weekly mileage: 27 miles

Favorite Runs

As we prepare to move i've been thinking about how many things i'm going to miss about Colorado. We've lived in several places around the Denver metro area over the past few years and in each place we live it seems I have a favorite running place nearby. In Lakewood it was Green Mountain, in denver it was the Highline Canal trail, and now it's the Big Dry Creek Trail in Westminster. I have no doubt that I will find a favorite run in Cleveland, but man am I going to miss the mountain views!

I did my 10 mile today on the big dry creek trail. Coming up to Sloans lake there was a beautiful view of snow capped mountain peaks. A picture just doesn't do it justice. But here is one anyway:

Does it get any better than that?

Goals

Retrospectively I probably should have written this at the beginning of my training, but better late than never! With the Colfax 1/2 marathon just about a month away I thought it might be time to formalize some goals for myself. Writing these things down makes me very nervous because there is always that chance that I will fall short.

This will be my fifth 1/2 marathon and i'm following a new training plan that i've never done before (it's the Advanced 1/2 Marathon training plan from The Marathon Method by Tom Holland for anyone that's curious). The start of my training was a little crazy in that I had originally planned to train for the full marathon. Trying to be a successful student on top of getting ready for this move to Cleveland i'm completely satisfied with the decision to drop down to the 1/2 marathon. Trying to do a Full would have been too much at this point. Overall i've liked the training program. I'll be the first to admit i've skipped a few of the runs here and there, but overall I think i've done a good job of following it. This is the first time i've incorporated speedwork into a 1/2 marathon training plan, which i've enjoyed and it has made the longer miles seem less monotonous. This plan has a longer taper (almost 3 full weeks after my 12 miler) than i've ever done before.

Now for my Goals for the 1/2:
1. Obviously I want to finish
2. Ideally I would like to run it under 2 hours. However, I have only ever accomplished this once before. With the speed work I think that it could be a possibility.
3. If I can't finish under 2 hours, i'd like to run under 10 minute miles.

Weekly Recap 4/5- 4/11

This was a step back week. It felt nice to have a little bit lighter week.

Sunday - 8.5 miles. I felt good the whole run, it was nice to have a shorter long run.

Saturday - 4 miles. I think I ate some bad food and was having horrible stomach cramps the whole run. I think this 4 miles felt worse than sunday's 8! At one point I stopped and bent over and a woman driving on the street stopped and asked me if I was alright, which was so nice, I must have looked bad.

Friday - off

Thursday - 5 miles

Wednesday - Boot Camp. It was the start of a new routine, which was a welcome change!

Tuesday - 4.2 miles

Monday - Body Pump

Total Weekly Milage: 21.7

A whole new kind of speed workout. Avoiding Hail.

Tuesday morning I had a 4 mile Fartlek planned (Fartlek for those of you that don't know means "speed play", its kind of a create your own speedwork, doing intervals between trees or whatever rather than prescribed distances).

My legs were feeling really sore and sluggish from the 12 miler on Sunday and my weight workout on monday. About half way through I decided I was done and was just going to run slowly the rest of the way home.... mother nature had other plans. It started thundering and before I knew it hail was slowly starting to fall. I started running faster, thinking that I could probably make it before it really started to get bad. Wrong! About 1/2 mile from home It really started pelting down, so I took shelter under an overpass until it started to lighten up, then I sprinted the rest of the way home.

Mother nature forced me to finish my speedwork! :-)

Weekly Recap 3/29 - 4/4

Sunday - 12 miles. Today was a great day for running. The sun was shining and the temperature was just perfect. I felt much better than my 10 miler last week where I felt like my legs were made of led.

Saturday - I was supposed to do a 5 mile tempo run, but started out and my calves were killing me, so I just went back home and decided to take an extra day of rest.

Friday - Rest

Thursday - 6.1 miles with 6x 1min hill repeats afterwards.

Wednesday - Boot Camp class in the morning then a 5.3 mile with some speed intervals after work (to make up for my choice of happy hour over running!)

Tuesday - Happy hour.

Monday - Body Pump

Total Weekly Milage - 23.4

The battle between happy hour and running...

In the battle between happy hour and running, happy hour always wins! This is part of the reason I started running in the morning. This week my sleep has been bad. As some of you may know my husband manages a freshman dorm at a University that, for the time being, will remain nameless. With spring in the air the students have begun to literally go crazy. Monday night they were screaming (not words, just ahhhhhhhhh) and running through the halls at midnight. Anyhow, in an effort to get more than 4 hours of sleep a night I've been sleeping in and trying to fit my runs in the afternoon.

Tuesday afternoon I had a 5 mile run scheduled. Instead, I went to happy hour after a long day in the lab.
Happy hour was just what I needed, but I always feel guilty about skipping a run.
I was so proud of myself for squeezing it in yesterday afternoon.

Hopefully next week i'll be back to running in the morning, so that happy hour and running wont have to compete!