Milwaukee Marathon Half Marathon Training: Week 10 Recap

Spoiler alert: I did not hit the mileage goal for the week.  In fact, I was not even close.  I took an extra unplanned rest day and cut a few workouts short.  

Mario Fraioli retweeted something by @jcissik : "You cannot out train a bad diet, lack of sleep, lack of studying, and a poor attitude."  It was basically a sign from God.  Like DUH.  I have been complaining for weeks about the lack of sleep I have gotten.  My diet has been terrible lately.  I have skipped breakfast a ton.  (SUPER BAD IDEA....just in case you were wondering.)

I tried to get more sleep over the weekend.  There were some successes (nap on Sunday!) and some fails (daughter up several times last night because of bad dreams!).  I definitely paid more attention to eating this weekend - as in I ate really amazing food and I ate very hearty breakfasts both days.

I'm going to keep on keeping on with my plan and *try* to not be so down on myself.  It's always a work in progress for us type-A, overachiever types, right?

Here is my recap:

Monday, August 14
Plan says: Rest

What I do:  Rest

Tuesday, August 15
Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 12 x 400m at 5k/10k pace with 400 m recovery in between, 1.5 mile cool down

What I do:  This was the last speed workout on the plan!  (The remaining weeks focus on "strength" workouts which are longer repeats (1+ miles).) My kids had a rough night of sleep Monday night so I did not get up early.  I left work to do these before piano lessons and managed to get the repeats done but had to skip out on the cool down.  It was a nice sunny day, temperatures were in the upper 70s.  I again did these in my neighborhood (0.25 mi) on a quasi hilly stretch.  My goal was NOT to blow them out of the water - try to stay consistent and close to goal pace (1:33).  I didn't want to kill my legs for the tempo run later this week like I did last week.

1.6 miles warm up, 12:43 (7:55 avg pace)

0.25 miles, 1:30.0 (5:57 avg pace) / 0.25 miles, 2:01.0 (7:59 avg pace)
0.25 miles, 1:28.7 (5:57) / 0.25 miles, 1:56.1 (7:46)
0.25 miles, 1:30.8 (6:07) / 0.25 miles, 1:57.2 (7:48)
0.25 miles, 1:30.8 (6:05) / 0.25 miles, 1:59.2 (7:45)

0.25 miles, 1:28.7 (5:54) / 0.25 miles, 2:05.3 (8:01)
0.25 miles, 1:30.6 (6:02) / 0.25 miles, 1:58.8 (7:57)
0.25 miles, 1:28.5 (5:58) / 0.25 miles, 2:01.4 (7:55)
0.25 miles, 1:30.6 (6:03) / 0.25 miles, 2:06.7 (8:17)

0.25 miles, 1:30.2 (5:56) / 0.25 miles, 2:02.3 (7:58)
0.25 miles, 1:28.6 (5:54) / 0.25 miles, 2:03.4 (8:08)
0.25 miles, 1:29.8 (6:01) / 0.25 miles, 2:04.5 (8:04)
0.25 miles, 1:28.5 (5:57) / 0.30 miles, 2:26.1 (8:07)

The last time I did 400s was during week 2 (6/20/17).  I ran those on a track, and they were much faster.

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)


Wednesday, August 16
Plan says: 5 miles

What I do:  I stayed up late on Tuesday night (10 pm) to read my book which made it hard to get up at 5 AM but I did eventually roll out of bed.  These were easy paced miles, although I felt tired.  It is always harder to have a hard afternoon workout and then an early morning workout the next day!  I added some on to make up for reduced cool down the day before.

5.70 miles, 49:27 (8:41 avg pace)

Thursday, August 17
Plan says: 1.5 mile warm up, 5 miles at half-marathon pace (6:44), 1.5 mile cool down

What I do:  Nothing.  Nada.  I was spent and slept terribly because my husband and I were kid-free on Wednesday night so we went out to dinner and wine was had.  I have noticed that whenever I have a DROP of wine, any sort, my sleep is awful.  I had several million drops (ok, half a bottle) with dinner and thus, I was up all night long and did not get a workout in before work.  The day sort of spiraled from there.  I ended up having to leave work early to go get the kids and then we had back to school night and by the time all was said and done, there was no way I was running.

Friday, August 18
Plan says: 6 miles easy

What I do:  Tried to get the tempo run in.  It was an epic fail, as I wrote about at the end of last week.

2.27 miles, 19:14 (8:29 avg pace)
1.35 miles, 9:23 (6:56 avg pace)
0.18 miles, 1:31 (8:38) and walk.

I felt like death and abandoned ship.  3.8 miles total.

Saturday, August 19
Plan says: 12 miles at long run pace (7:30-9:00)

What I do:  I was up early so I decided to get a long run in.  I was not in a good place mentally but thought, "Try to get to 6".  Six came and it became, "Try to get an hour of running in".  An hour came and then it was "Try to get 10 in" and then I hit 10!  I had hit my max allowable run time (we had to get to an event that morning) so I stopped there.

10.06 miles, 1:20:28 (8:00 avg pace)

Sunday, August 20
Plan says: 5 miles easy

What I do:  I inadvertently napped on Sunday after getting the BEST night of sleep ever on Saturday night.  I slept through the ENTIRE NIGHT.  Hallelujah.  I laid down with my son to help him relax for his nap and ended up falling asleep myself! I did this run after the kids were in bed and the first two miles felt heavy.  I switched off of podcast mode and fired up some music and voila.  Hit some fast miles.  Of course this was off plan, but it felt good after the crappy week to show myself that I could get some fast miles done.

5 miles, 36:42, (7:20 avg pace)

Plan Miles: 45
Total Weekly Miles: 32.27