Disclaimer: I received a WHITE pair of Under Armour HOVR shoes that I mention in my Race Recap below to test as part of the BibRave Pro ambassador program. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to review find and write race reviews!
Last week was CRAZY in that it snowed every day and we now have tons of the white stuff to deal with. 3 of the 4 non-race runs that I did last week were in unplowed snow with yaktraks. Snow running is QUITE a workout!
Also, I had my first race of 2018 on Saturday - the Pettit Indoor Marathon Relay!
I continued work on my WorkIn28 challenge - finishing off week 1 and moving onto week 2. It has been more challenging for me to fit it in during week 2 (because Olympics), but I am still trying to make it work.
So here is last week's mileage recap with my race recap:
Sunday February 4
0 miles
SLEDDING! This was a workout. The sledding hill near our home is called "killer hill" for a reason.
Monday, February 5
0 miles
This is just me being lazy.
Tuesday, February 6
4.01 miles, 33:30 (8:22 avg pace)
First of the snowy runs!
Wednesday, February 7
4 miles, 33:29 (8:22 avg pace)
Kind of funny that both Tuesday's run and this run were one second apart. I hit up the treadmill after my kids were in bed for this one - so, lots of button pushing.
Thursday, February 8
3.11 miles, 25:50 (8:19 avg pace)
Another night run! SO SO Sloppy with the snow/slush factor.
Friday, February 9
5 miles, 41:51 (8:22 avg pace)
My kids had a snow day from school which was ridiculous all things considered. They ended up going to my MIL's house and I worked from home, which meant I could take advantage and run in the middle of the day. It was so sunny and pretty out but this run was CHALLENGING because I decided to try to run around the pond on an ungroomed trail.
Saturday, February 10
8.39 miles, 58:00 (6:55 avg pace)
Indoor Marathon Relay time!
This was my third year participating in this with the Oiselle teams. This year, Oiselle women from MN and IL came to WI to join us so it was extra large and in charge. I had zero expectations for this race because as you know if you've been reading for the last four months, I have done nothing but generally easy runs. I decided that I was going to enjoy myself, and run by feel. I did not wear a watch even. (Partially this is because my Garmin doesn't work well indoors and last year when I wore a regular Timex, I forgot to start/stop it half the time.)
The strategy for this is always the same - each of 4 relay runners runs a total of 12 "800s". This is in quotation marks because each segment is actually two laps around the track, which is 886 meters total. In the previous times I have participated in this event, I have always been runner #1. This year, I was runner #3.
It is challenging to do because you aren't running long enough to take advantage of any warm up - you run your two laps and then stand on the sidelines and watch your teammates run a total of 6 laps and then you are up again. There is NO space to continue jogging and you have to pay attention so that you can move the lap counter from ankle to ankle. It is CRAZY. And fun.
The other difficult thing is that the relay is in the afternoon and they have an indoor half marathon race in the morning. There is maybe 20 minutes of clear track in between those two events so you don't get a ton of time to warm up either.
While I opted out of wearing a watch, I did wear my
Under Armour HOVR Sonic shoes (see disclaimer above) to try to capture mileage and splits that I could analyze afterwards. I ran as many warm up laps with my teammates that I could until they literally kicked us off the track. My shoes tell me that this was 2.15 miles at 8:20 pace.
Then it was go time. I felt good running my first few laps and I had no idea how fast I was running. It felt like I was running fast, and I estimated that I was in the 6:30/mile pace range. One of my teammates thought I was running faster than that so she had her husband, our official lap counter, time my 5th (or was it 6th?!) segment and he had me at 5:50 pace. What the what?! Admittedly, I ended up neck and neck with another woman during that segment and she was definitely making me work for my laps, but I was still pleasantly surprised.
Obligatory race photos where I look like a dinosaur:
Hello pain face!
Our team finished 5th women's and we nailed the sub 3 total time: 2:54:27.26 (6:40 avg).
My shoes show me at the following avg paces for my 12 segments:
5:45, 5:52, 5:54, 7:42, 5:57, 5:59, 9:24, 5:53, 6:15, 6:10, 6:07, 6:06
Obviously there are two outliers there - looking at the data charts for the 7:42 lap, it looks like my pace tanked at 2:00 in for some reason and it was a little longer than the others. This makes me think that I kept moving immediately after my ankle tracker was removed for a bit, which brought my pace down.
For the 9:24 split, again it was a little longer than the others, making me think it counted some of my post-segment walking into the split.
What other fun stuff can I tell you from the data from my shoes....
Max Pace, Avg Cadence, Avg Stride Length for each segment:
1 - 5:30, 196, 114.8
2 - 5:40, 194, 113.2
3 - 5:41, 194, 110.0
4 - 5:41, 186, 106.0
5 - 5:41, 194, 111.9
6 - 5:47, 194, 108.8
7 - 5:53, 184, 103.3
8 - 5:41, 194, 109.5
9 - 6:01, 190, 108.9
10 - 5:53, 190, 107.2
11 - 5:55, 190, 108.3
12 - 5:48, 190, 110.7
Pretty cool data, right!? I will be posting my official review of these shoes later this week but I couldn't resist sharing this early.
I also am pleasantly surprised that I still have some speed! I mean, after just running 25ish miles/week for 4 months at a comfortable pace. This makes me excited to build up some actual endurance/speed fitness in the coming weeks. All in all, this event was a great way to end my base mileage phase.
W1D1 Marathon Training was yesterday (Sunday, Feb 11).
Weekly Total: 24.5 miles
