Milwaukee Marathon Half Marathon Training: Week 2 Recap

Week two was fun to get back into the "Hansons" swing of things.  My first track workout in a long while was AWESOME! My first tempo run in a long while was not.  Oh well, you win some, you lose some.  My legs definitely felt tired this whole week and I'm sure will take a bit to get used to being on a training plan again.

Monday, June 19
Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 12 x 400 at 5k/10k pace with 400 m recovery in between, 1.5 mile cool down

What I do: I slept through my alarm.  I could have done this after kids were in bed at night but I knew I would have a hard time getting to sleep so I pushed it off a day.

Tuesday, Jun 20
Plan says: 0 miles

What I do:  Get my a** out of bed.  It was a tough one because my son had gotten up in the middle of the night and that always throws me off but I did it.  The high school track is 1.8 miles from our house so I ran there and home for my warm up and cool down.  I was pleasantly surprised at how good these felt and how fast they were.  My goal was 1:33 for the 400s.  Crushed it.

1.79 mile warm up, 14:14 (7:59 avg pace)

12 x 400m with 400 m recovery

1 - 1:24 / 1:55  (5:33 avg pace / 7:43 avg pace)
2 - 1:26 / 1:50  (5:36 / 7:23)
3 - 1:25 / 1:58  (5:40 / 7:53)
4 - 1:25 / 1:54  (5:31 / 7:39)
5 - 1:26 / 1:59  (5:38 / 7:59)
6 - 1:22 / 1:56  (5:22 / 7:47)
7 - 1:27 / 1:59  (5:39 / 8:03)
8 - 1:25 / 1:54  (5:27 / 7:36)
9 - 1:25 / 1:57  (5:31 / 7:43)
10 - 1:24 / 1:59  (5:23 / 7:49)
11 - 1:23 / 1:57  (5:20 / 7:45)
12 - 1:25 (5:33)

1.8 mile cool down, 14:18 (7:57 avg pace)
Total: 9.43 miles

I had to do this workout on February 20 as part of marathon training and I was curious how these paces compared since I had the same goal pace of 1:33 then.  My 400s were significantly faster in June!  The caveat being that I did these on the road in February and on a track in June.  Here are my February 400s:

1:35
1:36
1:31
1:29
1:30
1:30
1:32
1:32
1:36
1:32
1:31
1:31

Wednesday, June 21
Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 3 miles at half-marathon pace (6:44), 1.5 mile cool down

What I do: Oh the return of tempo run Wednesdays.  My legs felt tired when I woke up in the early morning to do this.  (YES! I woke up early two days in a row!)  But I knew I had to get it done so that my legs could rest enough for my race on Saturday.

1.5 mile warm up, 12:39 (8:26 avg pace)

Yep.  No problem getting over 8:00 miles on that one!

3 mile tempo, 19:49 (6:36 avg pace)
By the numbers this looks good but it was a bit of a disaster.  I chugged along and hit my first mile in 6:51.  Rather than just let it ride and let the pace come, I freaked out that it was "slow" and kicked it in and then realized that I had kicked it in too much. Stop. Mental Reset. Continue.  Second mile was 6:42.  Continued mental freakout that it felt too hard, but had to keep pushing. Felt like I was dying.  Stop. Mental Reset. Continue. Third mile, 6:14.

So yes.  There continues to be some work to be done.  All of my mental prowess that I developed in the months leading up to the marathon seems to be gone, or at least diminished.

1.5 mile cool down, 11:48 (7:50 avg pace)

Thursday, June 22
Plan says: 4 miles easy

What I do:  4 miles, real easy.  My first mile clocked in at 8:30. 33:30 (8:22 avg pace).

Friday, June 23
Plan says: 4 miles easy

What I do:  After getting up pre-5:00 am for three days in a row, I was bound to sleep in.  Thus, I did this after work.  I only did 3 easy miles on account of the fact I had a race in the morning.

3 miles, 23:51 (7:56 avg pace)

Saturday, June 24
Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I do:  See Bigfoot Trail 10K Race Report  and my bibrave.com review.  I will say that after I read some articles re: trail racing vs. road racing, I feel a bit better about the race.  You can lead the Type A runner to a trail, but you cannot undo competitive hard wiring in one race!

6.2 miles, 42:58 (6:55 avg pace) plus some pre-race warm up running (untimed/unmapped)

Sunday, June 25
Plan says: 4 miles easy

What I do:  4.85 miles easy.  The last 0.15 miles were with my 3 year old and my BILs dog, both of whom are not runners.  We switched to walking :)

38:42 (7:58 avg pace)

Plan Miles: 33
Total Weekly Miles:  33.45 miles

Sleep Data

Yeesh.  My sleep was not anything to write home about last week.  Sense missed data recording on 4 of the nights - 3 because of sensor issues, 1 because I didn't sleep at home.

Average sleep score: 78 (out of 100)
Average sleep duration: 7.3 hours (7.3 hours weekday, 7.5 hours weekend)

Sleep quality: 7% light, 44% medium, 50% deep