Marathon Training – Week 14

Another week down! We are now less than a month from the marathon, so crazy! I signed up for the Broad Street Run this week. It’s a 10 mile race on May 6. I think it will be good to have a goal in mind for after the marathon.

This week was extremely exhausting. I worked until the wee hours of the morning, but I still managed to squeeze in 5 work outs. Here’s what I did:

Monday: Cross Training – I swam and biked. Both of these helped to loosen up my legs from the 18 miler.

Tuesday: Rest – 4 hours of sleep = no work out

Wednesday: Speed Work – This workout was a 1 mile warm up, 10×400 with 400 of RI in between each,  and a 1 mile cool down. I warmed up at a 10:03 pace. I did a walk/jog for my resting intervals. The pace of the 10 fast intervals were: 8:50, 8:26, 8:26, 8:11, 8:23, 8:07, 8:16, 9:08, 7:19, 8:12. I wanted to keep them all in the 8 minute range. When I didn’t get that for the 8th 400 I pushed really hard for the 9th. Then I cooled down with a mile run and some walking for a total for the day of 7.28 miles.

Thursday: Rest – 4 hours of sleep = no work out (again)

Friday: Tempo Run – This was 1 mile easy, 5 miles tempo. I ended up just doing what felt good. The splits: 9:10, 9:24, 9:24, 9:36, 10:13, 9:00. Then I cooled down for a total of 6.11 miles.

Saturday: Cross Training – I did the arc trainer for 15 minutes, the elliptical for 15 minutes and upper body strength for 20 minutes.

Sunday: Long Run – This was a step back week. Hooray! My schedule called for 10 miles. I considered doing more since I skipped a 13 miler the other week because of my neck. I set out on a 12 mile route, but when I got to 10 miles I was just ready to be done. So I walked the last 2 miles home. It felt great to just walk. I didn’t run with water and I was very thirsty around mile 7. Big mistake. I’m also feeling some foot pain that feels like this old injury. I’m a bit worried about that. The splits: 10:54, 10:52, 10:40, 10:53, 10:54, 10:37, 10:58, 11:02, 10:33, 10:31. Not my best, not my worst.

Total mileage: 25.39

Time for bed! Week 15 is going to be the most challenging yet! I’m nervous.

–Melissa

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Marathon Training – Week 3

I survived week 3! And my first double digits run since May! Here’s how it went:

Monday: Cross Training – I did elliptical and upper body strength. I forget exactly how long I did each for, but it was a good work out after my 9 mile run last week. I hadn’t lifted for a while and it felt so good!

Tuesday: Speed Work –  This weeks speed work was a 10 minute warm up, 3 minutes fast, 3 minutes easy 4 times, 10 minute cool down. I don’t know whether it was because I was tired or if I was just pushing too hard during my fast intervals, but this was HARD. My warm up was a 9:29 pace. My 4 fast intervals were 8:54, 8:11, 8:48, 8:03. I cooled down at a 10:50 pace. I ended up doing 4.67 miles. My run on Tuesday reminded me of a picture Vic sent  to me a while back that I forgot about:

Wednesday: Cross Training – I did elliptical and upper body again, but different upper body than Monday. My shoulders were very sore after.

Thursday: Tempo Run – My schedule had me doing 2 easy miles, 3 tempo miles, 1 easy mile. I felt much better than Tuesday when I headed out, and I could not slow down. My first 2 easy miles were way faster than I wanted, and I was worried I wouldn’t be able to finish my 3 tempo miles at my goal pace, but I managed to crank them out anyway. My splits: 9:23, 9:33, 9:12, 8:44, 8:45, 10:02. Then I walked for a bit for a total of 6.23 miles.

Friday: Cross Training –  I met up with Mom at the gym and worked out with her and her trainer for a half hour before I had to head off to work. We did squats. I felt those the next day!

Saturday: Long Run – 10 miles. I was worried about fitting this run in this weekend and I was glad to get it done with early Saturday morning. I lucked out with great weather once again! The first mile my legs would not cooperate and it was very slow. But after I was warmed up I managed to keep a decent pace and ended up feeling so much better than after my 9 mile run last week. My goal was to feel comfortable for the whole run, and then speed up a little towards the end for a strong finish. I stopped at mile 6 to eat a Gu. I tried the chocolate flavor this week, mmm, reason enough to do long runs!

The splits: 11:37, 10:28, 10:29, 10:28, 10:37, 10:17, 10:19, 10:10, 9:59, 9:19. Then I walked home for 1.39 miles.

Sunday: Rest  Cross Training – I didn’t rest today because I had time for an easy work out. I figure at some point I will miss a work out here and there and I should get them in while I can. Though I’m not sure today reaaaally counts as a work out since I kept it super light and was more just to get my blood flowing after yesterday. I swam for 20 minutes and then I biked very, very slowly for a half hour.

Total miles: 20.9 miles

Bring it, week 4!

–Melissa

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Better Than Nothing

Today I had every intention having a good work out. The plan was to swim and then do some weights. I got to the gym wearing my bathing suit, sweat pants and a tee shirt. I realized I forgot work out clothes to lift in, and even though I only live two blocks away I didn’t feel like going back home. So, I switched and lifted in the clothes I was wearing and then I decided I would swim after. As I was finishing up the first half of my work out I realized I forgot my goggles too. So instead of torturing myself with chlorine-y eyes, I decided that I would just swim 100 meters and call it a day, eh better than nothing!

Yesterday I had a planned 5 miler. I woke up and dragged myself out of bed. I thought to myself “this is going to be one of those days where I wished I stayed in bed” but I was wrong! I had a great run! I didn’t really want to run on the treadmill, but it was too cold to run outside, and the track is just too small for 5 miles, that would have meant I had to go around 60 times! Oof!

I did 5 minute intervals. I would do 5 minutes at 6.0 and then 5 minutes at a faster pace. I started at 7.0 for 4 minutes and 7.5 for 1 minute. Each time I did the faster part I increased that by .1 (i.e. the next one was 7.1 and 7.6). I finished 5 miles in 45:28 which is a 9:05 pace!

–Melissa

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Variety

This weekend I did a nice variety of workouts.

Saturday: I swam for the first time at my new gym. I swam 500 meters. Mostly free style, but I switched up towards then end with back stroke and breast stroke. I definitely need to work on my swimming if I ever want to do a tri. Or I could just do this 😉

Then I did some light biking to cool down. I spent the day hunting down good study spots in the city with friends. We didn’t find anywhere good. Boo.

Sunday: I knew I wanted to get in 3 more miles for the week, but I also really felt like doing a spinning class at 4 pm. So I did both! I went over to the gym around 3:15 and ran 3.25 miles in 30 minutes. Then I headed to spinning thinking I would be right on time. I guess the clock in the main part of the gym is different than the clock in the spinning room because the class had already started. Someone had stolen my bike! I hopped on a different one instead but I quickly found out the resistance on that bike didn’t work and I had to switch bikes. So I wasted the first 5-10 minutes of class by being late/ on a broken bike. But it was still a good class!

Now, my least favorite part of any day…studying 😦

–Melissa

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The Basics

I forgot to write about the most important thing of my little mini xmas break yesterday. Mom and I were swimming and I stopped after maybe 2 laps and I asked “how do I swim without feeling like I’m going to die?”

Mom re-taught me (I assume I knew at one point) how to breathe when swimming. Umm….blowing out when you are under water– instead of holding your breath and gasping for air when you turn your head– is SO much easier. Duh.

Today I hit the gym for a treadmill run (I’m a big fan of doing what I feel like these days, and if it means consecutive running days, so be it). I was planning on a longer run than usual but I ran into a bunch of people I know and I got yelled at by the front desk people because I’m technically not a member of the gym anymore. I belonged there for 8 years and Mom has about 38980982 guest passes (a rough estimate), so I figured the last few weeks before the move I could just use those. I was wrong. The front desk people didn’t like my logic. At all.

Anyway by the time I finally got on the treadmill I had killed about twenty minutes. So I decided to drastically cut my run to 15 minutes. I did sprint intervals (30 seconds at 6.0, 30 seconds at 9.0), after some strength training I called it a day so I could get back to the books. Studying really gets in the way of the things I would rather be doing. Grr.

Happy New Years Eve Eve!

–Melissa

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The Next Big Thing

Since I don’t have enough going on in my life (moving, working, studying, etc) I decided to add one more thing to the list…..wait for it…..

I’m training for a TRIATHLON!!!!

This is something I’ve wanted to do for a while now. Some people probably think I’m crazy for trying to fit training for this into my already busy schedule. But I know I can do it! The race I want to do is in 7 months, it’s a sprint distance so that means .5 mile swim, 15 mile bike and a 5k run.

Yesterday I went out and bought a beautiful road bike! They had to order it but it should be here in a week or so. When I went to the bike shop they let me take one out for a test ride. The bike I rode was a little bit nicer than the one I got, but the salesman said I probably wouldn’t be able to feel a difference in the two. I loved the one I test rode, I can’t wait to start training! I felt a little silly though because I was wearing my Uggs, jeans, a sweater and pea coat to test ride it. 😛 I also got some accessories.

New Helmet

Today I woke up and was going to go for a 5 mile run. Just before I was about to leave Grammy called. Her smoke detector battery needed to be replaced and she asked if I would come fix it. I told her I would come over after my run. After we hung up I remembered that Grammy goes to an indoor pool! I called her back and asked if I could get a guest pass or something. She said I could, so I cut my run down to 4 miles and I would go for a swim later in the afternoon!

I was so excited heading out for my run because I would be doing my first brick workout of sorts. Even though I would be taking a break in between and it was a little out of order. Oh well!

About a mile into my run I tripped over a huge, thorny stick. I went flying but didn’t fall but my neighbor happened to be walking her dog and saw me almost wipe out. Embarrassing. Haha.

The rest of the run my legs felt great, but it was definitely a mental struggle. For some reason running 4 miles today was so mentally challenging. Weird considering I ran 13 a week ago. Either way, my time was fantastic for me! When I got to 4 miles I cooled down for a tiny bit with .22 miles of walking. The splits:

Mile 1:	9:57
Mile 2:	9:46
Mile 3:	9:46
Mile 4:	9:30
.22:	3:46

Yay! Sub-10 pace for all the miles!

After my run I headed to Grammy’s house to fix her smoke detector. Then, I headed to the pool for my first “real” swim in YEARS.

I have my work cut out for me.

I did a quarter of a mile swim, but I stopped a lot. So basically I needed to double the distance and take out all breaks in the next 7 months. I hope I can do it!!!

–Melissa

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