Week in Review!

Happy Monday.  Today officially kicks off marathon training!  18 weeks of lots of running ahead!

Last week was a great week for me.  My goal for the week was to run my easy runs at an easy pace in preparation for marathon training. The Hanson pace chart has my "easy" pace at 8:13 - 8:49/mile so I was attempting to get closer to that.  I did ok.  The weather was moderate last week which was lucky for me.  I again got in six running days!

Monday: 4 miles, 31:25 (7:51 avg pace)

Tuesday: 4.07 miles, 34:33 (8:29 avg pace)

Tuesday morning I woke up at 5 AM to run.  I was greeted by a fresh blanket of white snow so I wore my yaktrax.  The snow was so pretty and at times I felt like I was in a movie because I was running down the middle of a street with no tire tracks, footprints or anything and the air was very still.  The snow was very clumpy though so every so often my yaktrax would get clumped up with snow which was annoying.  This made it very easy to be in my "recovery" zone though! Check out that pace!

Wednesday: 5.01 miles, 35:23 (7:04 avg pace)

Thursday: 2.7 miles, 19:35 (7:15 avg pace)

This was fast because I was trying desperately to squeeze this in before the bus arrived and hit 3 miles minimum.  Alas!  I didn't make it.

Friday: Off

Saturday: Friday night we went out with my book club for our annual holiday gathering (which was pushed to January this year).  We stayed up late (midnight bedtime) and I had two beers + a glass of sparkling rose.  I am at the point in life where I can have one alcoholic drink and feel effects of it so it was no surprise when I woke up on Saturday feeling "meh".  We were taking the kids to a college basketball game in the afternoon so I headed out for my run mid-morning.  I knew I was dehydrated but I forced myself to go because how I was feeling was self-induced.

It was a long run of constant "just get to the next mile".  While I don't recommended not getting enough sleep and having a few drinks the night before a long run, it was good practice for sticking it out when I don't feel perfect, something I need to work on.

All that positive self talk paid off.  I hit 9 miles faster than last week, when I was feeling great! I had a burst of positive mindset in the 5-6 mile range, which is reflected in my per mile average pace.  I had trouble holding on to that pace.  I was going to quit at the one hour mark but I forced myself to get to 9.  I knew that last week's 9 mile time was in the 1:03 range, and at the one hour mark, I was at 8.5/8.6 land so I just pushed hard to get a final mile split of 6:38.  You can bet I spent the afternoon chugging Nuun.

Mile 1: 7:20
Mile 2: 7:24
Mile 3: 7:12
Mile 4: 7:05
Mile 5: 6:42
Mile 6: 6:38
Mile 7: 6:55
Mile 8: 6:59
Mile 9: 6:38

9.01 miles, 1:02:56 (6:59 avg pace)

Sunday: 4.34 miles, 32:48 (7:33 avg pace)

My legs were definitely sore for this.  The pace was faster than I wanted to be at, given this should have been a "recovery" run.

Total Weekly Mileage: 29.13