Cellcom Green Bay Marathon Training: Week 15 Recap

This was going to be the longest mileage week of the plan- I bumped up tempo runs to 10 miles and had my last 16 mile run.  The week was rougher than usual for me.  With the exception of Monday, most of my runs felt difficult and I was tired all week, despite getting more sleep than I have been getting.  By today, I felt like all virus had left my body. 

April was a good month.  I logged 224.18 miles!  That makes it my highest mileage month ever, a 125% increase over April 2016 and 110% increase over April 2015.  Neither of these are the most fair comparisons given that my marathon in 2016 was mid-April and my marathon in 2015 was first week of May, but I'll still take it :)

Here is my recap of the last week:

Monday April 24
Plan says: 1 mi warm up, 3 x 2 mi at 7:05 pace, 800 recovery between sets, 1 mi cool down

What I did:  For the second morning in a row, my alarm did not go off.  I have been having problems with my Sense alarm not syncing to our wireless so I thought that was the issue.  Because of this, I did not do my workout in the morning.  This was probably a blessing in disguise on many fronts.  I had a lot of trouble getting to sleep so I chugged some children's Benedryl, simply because my eyes were SO ITCHY.    I opted to wear my glasses instead of contacts all day to see if that would help.  I have been taking a daily Claritin for about 3 weeks now, in anticipation of seasonal allergies.  (Pollen and me do not mix well.)   I had to leave work early to get this done before my daughter arrived on the school bus at 4 PM.  Thus, temps were in the low 70s when I did this workout and it was SUNNY.  I was glad to have the opportunity for some practice in the heat.  (For reference, had I done this at 4:30am as intended, it would have been 35 degrees out.)

I ran out of the neighborhood, as I run enough neighborhood loops that when it is daylight, I get out of Dodge!

1 mile warm up: 8:03

2 miles, 13:24 (6:41 avg pace)

0.5 miles, 4:23 (8:47 avg pace)

2 miles, 13:10 (6:34 avg pace)

0.5 miles, 4:19 (8:33 avg pace)

2 miles, 13:27 (6:43 avg pace)

1.1 miles cool down: (9:36, 8:42 avg pace)

Total 9.1 miles

So those were way faster than they were supposed to be.  I had to do this same workout two weeks ago and was curious how the times compared.  Two weeks ago, my two mile repeats were:
13:42
13:43
13:49

I will say that 2 weeks ago, I did these as neighborhood loops and our neighborhood is fairly hilly. The 2 mile repeats today were pancake flat.  I am still experimenting with gels so after the 2nd 2-miler, I took a Huma Gel.  This did not upset my stomach in any way but the texture was kind of weird due to the chia seeds so I don't know that I will be investing in those.  Also, full disclaimer, the third two miler almost did me in...I stopped twice.   It was almost into the wind the entire way (the first two were in to the wind for only one mile) and I was pooped.

Tuesday April 25
Plan says: Off

What I Did: 0 miles, nothing else.  My brother gets married in a week and a half and I volunteered to do the place cards so I spent my night working on those.

Wednesday April 26
Plan says: 1 mi warm up, 10 miles tempo (7:15 pace), 1 mi cool down

What I Did: First, I solved my alarm clock issue...or so I thought.  I had been setting my alarms for PM times instead of AM.  DUH!  My alarm went off right at 430 so I must have been in a deep sleep.  It was a struggle to get out of bed.  It was supposed to be thunder-storming according to my weather app but it didn't sound like it.  Despite this, I was THIS close to abandoning ship.  But I didn't.  I got out of bed and got dressed.

Once outside, it was warm and humid.  I was wearing a t-shirt and shorts.  I opted to NOT do a warm up because I wanted to get in as many tempo miles as I could before it started raining figuring every tempo mile that I could get done outside and NOT on a treadmill would be awesome.

My first mile was 7:30ish and then I overcompensated with the second mile at 6:57.  My legs were really tired.  I switched over to the pace view of my watch to try to more consistently arrive at 7:15.  I had to stop several times to blow snot rockets and clear my throat because although I am feeling a bit better, I still have all the drainage plus I have been neti potting.  I took off my shirt at mile 5 and stopped to grab my water bottle and take a gel - Strawberry Banana Gu, which tasted and felt great.  I again started running and felt that I had FINALLY gotten into a good rhythm.  I looked down at my watch to check pace when I realized that I had never restarted my watch.

I almost lost it.  I again stopped and had to give myself a pep talk to not quit.  I retraced my route to try to figure out how much mileage I had lost and estimated that I had lost somewhere between 0.5 and 0.6 miles on the "official" Garmin log.  I decided that I was going to stop my tempo run at 9.5 on my Garmin since that would be my 10 mile count.  It was finally light outside so I could ditch my sweaty grimy knucklelights and go. Mile 6 came in at 8:05. I ended up finishing this feeling ok.  There was a lot of "your next mile will be better" talk going on.  My last four miles were consistent - 6:46, 6:52, 6:55, 6:50.  I did a 2 mile cool down and raced back inside to get to work.

10 miles tempo, 9.5 recorded on my Garmin in 1:07:25 (7:05 avg pace)

2.1 miles cool down, 16:45 (7:58)

I was really really tired all day and opted to go to bed by 8 PM.

Thursday April 27
Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I Did: AGAIN, my alarm did not go off.  Overnight, my Sense alarm lost connectivity to our Wi-Fi.  ARGH.  Not only did I not have an alarm, I did not have any sleep data from Wednesday night, which was going to be a pretty decent night given my early bedtime.  ARGH.

So now I had to figure out when I could get this done.  I was not going to be able to leave too early from work because a) I already used that card earlier this week; and b) I had a meeting.  I got home, changed, and decided to run as far as I could before the bus came and I would have to tack on the missed mileage to Friday's run.

This run felt like a slog.  I was still really tired.  Still having a lot of throat mucus and snot.  I ended up getting 4.55 miles in.  35:33 (7:49 avg pace).  I again shot for an earlier bedtime and set TWO alarms.

Friday April 28
Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I Did:  The day I set two alarms is of course the day I don't need any.  My son woke up at 4:44 AM (I set my alarm for 4:50).  I got him back to bed and then my Sense alarm went off, but again, no sleep data recorded because there was some issue with the sensor on my pillow.  ARGH.

It was 30 degrees out.  I pulled on all the winter running stuff and got outside.  Once again, it was a slogfest.  My legs felt so heavy and tired.  Still lots of throat mucus and snot.  Thankfully I could go as slow as I wanted and was able to finish 7.61 miles which took care of the 1.5 miles I missed the day before.

7.61 miles, 1:04:00 (8:25 avg pace)

Saturday April 29
Plan says: 16 miles, long (7:54 pace)

My mother-in-law invited me to a luncheon on Saturday, so I was going to be gone 10-2:30.  I opted to get this done right away in the morning since I got lucky and it wasn't raining, although cold.  I was back in tights, long sleeve, jacket, ear warmer and gloves.  I was pretty tired because we went out the night before with some of Nate's colleagues so my bedtime was late.  Again, no sleep data.  I chugged some Gen U-Can before leaving.  I had forgotten to re-stock my gels so I was going to be using blocks for fuel, which I don't really love.

I started out and again felt really tired and like my legs were not firing.  Finally, around mile 5, things started to click and I felt pretty good.   I hit a bunch of wind on my return but still was going faster than goal pace for many of these miles, with the exception of the first 4.  One mile was super fast - 7:14 - and I had to rein it in from that one.  The blocks worked okay but I still don't love how they get stuck in your teeth.

16 miles, 2:01:02 (7:34 pace)
7:48 / 7:54 / 7:47 / 8:00 / 7:30 / 7:25 / 7:28 / 7:23 / 7:23 / 7:30 / 7:14 / 7:28 / 7:30 / 7:31 / 7:44 / 7:26

I made a stop at our local running store in the afternoon and got a bunch of the strawberry banana Gu so I would be set for May.

I felt pretty dehydrated all day so I chugged a lot of Nuun before I went to bed.

Sunday April 30
Plan says: 5 miles easy

What I Did: Yay! I think my sleep system is back on track.  Or, at least I logged some sleep data for Saturday night.  I woke up and my weather app said it wasn't raining so I got dressed, got my son going with breakfast, and went outside.  It was lightly raining, and I probably could have stuck it out, but I was not in the mood so I changed and jumped on the treadmill.  I was lucky that even though it rained the majority of days in April, today was the first 'mill day for me!

WOW.  It was slow.  I just had to gut this one out.  

5 miles, 45:44 (9:09 avg pace)

Lucky for me, my aunt is a massage therapist and came to our house and set up her massage table and gave me a 90+ minute massage!  It felt great.  She said my legs were strong and felt very well balanced, which I took as a compliment.  Great way to recover from a tough week!

Weekly Mileage:
Plan Says: 54
What I Did: 54.4

Sleep Data
I only logged sleep data for 4 of the 7 days.
Avg amount of sleep:  7.7 hours
Avg sleep score: 82

51% deep, 47% medium, 2% light

I am bummed that the 3 nights of missed data were three good nights of sleep.  I'm sure I really averaged over 8 hours this week.

Podcasts
I listened to the rest of the Real Talk Radio with Nicole Antoinette interview with Kelly Roberts, Erin Taylor and Dr. Stephanie Howe Violett.