Half Marathon Training Week 7 Recap

After two weeks of increasing mileage, week 7 was a welcome cut back week.  My focus for the week was to run the hard workouts (speed + long run) hard, but dial back the effort on the three recovery runs. I previously mentioned aiming for an 8:00 pace for my easy runs because there is no removing my Garmin from my wrist.  My goal is to recover and train my brain to be okay with a slower pace.   I would say that based on this goal, I had a successful week!

This was also a week where I wanted to try to get back on the plan of having Friday and Sunday off, which required me to run a LOT of days in a row (continuing from week 6).  I definitely could feel how tired my legs were on Monday (which was my 5th day in a row running), so the pace was not really that hard to come by!

Monday:  3.12 miles, 26:36 (avg pace 8:31) + 8 strides

Tuesday: 5 miles, 40:19 (avg pace 8:03)

Wednesday: "The Burner".  I was anxious about this because the description of this workout begins with, 'This will be a hard workout!".

Instructions:  Hard mile 20-30 sec under goal pace (6:30-6:40 for me). 3 minute rest. 15 minute tempo 10 sec over goal pace (7:10 for me). 2-3 minute rest.  Hard 800m.

1 mile warm up: 8:11 avg pace
1 mile hard: 6:22 avg pace
2.13 miles, 15:02 (7:04 avg pace).
0.5 miles, 2:56 (5:50 avg pace).
1.07 mi cool down: 7:52 avg pace

I really loved this workout.  My legs felt like jelly starting the tempo portion so it really allowed me to mentally work at sticking it out because as I got into the rhythm, it felt easy.  There wasn't a lot of direction for the 800 so my goal was to ride the pain train.  No backing down, as I am wont to do.  I was pleasantly surprised at how fast it was after the faster mile and tempo.  Perhaps the "go easy on easy days" paid off!  I also was pleased with how this workout went knowing it was my 7th day in a row running.

Thursday:  I was supposed to run this morning but my son ran interference with that plan and I ended up deciding to skip it.  My legs were happy for the off day.  BUT...

Friday:  Because I skipped Thursday, I had to run Friday, which really was no better for me in the sleep department as my son was up at 430 AND I had 2.5 beers on Thursday night with a girlfriend which also caused me to go to bed later than usual (10:30 pm).  Yeah.  SHOULD HAVE RAN THURSDAY.  BUT.  I did it.  I got my quasi-hungover ass out of bed and did 5 miles 38:52 (7:46 avg pace).

Saturday: As I mentioned this was a cut back week so my "long" run was only 7 miles.  I got this in before breakfast on Saturday and as with all my long runs, negative splitting was my goal.

7 miles/50:08 (7:10 avg pace)

7:36
7:38
7:44
7:03
6:45
6:43
6:38

It was another slow start for me - felt like a slug.  I need to research half marathon warm ups because although I am inclined to NOT do a warm up prior to the race and use the early race miles for my warm up, my long runs seem to indicate the need for a pretty slow warm up.

Sunday:  My daughter and son asked me to run with them.  We ended up maybe running 3-4 blocks with My Little Ponys in hand.  My daughter had concocted some story about how the ponies gave us powers, yadda yadda.  I really wanted my husband to take a picture of all 3 of us running through our neighborhood with a pony in each hand, but alas - the Packers game was on!  A fun way to spend an "off" day.

Total Week 7 Mileage: 25.85
Race Day Countdown: 19 days!