Half Marathon Training, Between Week 6 and 7

If you’ve been following me here this shouldn’t be any surprise, but for the rest of you and for my posterity, here is how last week went.  Since this is all P4DoV (pre-4 days of Vegas), I’m just going to list most of the workouts as complete, I don’t *really* remember what I was thinking and feeling last Monday.

Monday: 4 mile run and weights at the gym

Check and check.

Tuesday: 40 minute tempo run and yoga

Check and check.  Though I fail miserably at running true tempos (all one pace), I did push myself pretty hard and clocked the tempo part around a 8:20 pace.  I do remember not being into this run AT ALL until about 10 mins before cooldown though.  Bad, bad.

Wednesday: DDR and yoga

Check and check.

Thursday: 4 mile run and weights at home

Half check and check.  My body just needed sleep that morning so I slept instead of running (hence the “I slept in and blah blah” post last week).  Then, I was going to make it up as a really really long warmup before my weights session, but I felt the tired coming on around the end of mile 2 and just stopped there.  I didn’t want to really kill myself within about 14 hours of the long run.

Friday: 8 mile run

Check.  I was actually about 3 mins late to work.  Oops.  Must get up earlier.  Oddly enough – about mile 4 to 7 was totally rough, but I started getting my second wind around 7.  I’m hoping this bodes well for the next one.

Vacation: No running, lots of walking/swimming

Check.  Walked at least 10 miles total, swam for about an hour, didn’t even bring the running shoes.  I did enough activity that I still feel pretty sore though (however if I had to choose between standing for an hour and running for an hour – standing would make me more sore)!

Total week 6 mileage (running):  18.5 (plus a ton of walking)

Week 7 – not a normal week, but a week it is.

Wednesday: yoga and 50 mins of DDR

Thursday: 4.5 mile run and weights at the gym

Friday: 9 mile run

Weekend: Rest and bike riding somewhere.  Not going to try to make up all the missed training, but want to do *something*

Things I learned last week:

1.  Vacations are never restful.  On the mind, usually, yes.  On the body – never.  I don’t think I’ve ever come back from a vacation raring to go the next day.  I don’t know why I thought this would be different, but I was hoping.  I already knocked off one run I was going to do this weekend, and considering how I feel right now and how HARD it was for me to get outta bed this morning, I’m hoping I can make it through the 3 days I have planned.

If I had my perfect world, I would NOT have scheduled a vacation in the 3 months while trying to train for a half.  I need to get my head back into what I’m doing, and ignore the fact that I work out way more than normal people and that I shouldn’t feel entitled to slack because of it.  I also have to remember that I *eat* more than a regular human female of my size who doesn’t train like I do, so if I lower the activity, I need to start watching myself instead of devouring 2 bowls of soup and a whole chicken and a half worth of breasts at the dinner show.

2.  8 miles is much different than 7, but I got through it.  Hopefully, 9 miles will be just about like 8.  If it’s much more difficult, I’m going to have a hard time upping my mileage like this every week.  Until I have another longer-than-7 mile run under my belt, I can’t be sure if I just had a crappy run last week or pushing myself this far this fast is too much for me.

3.  Just so everything in here isn’t all about me being tired and having rough runs – I’m starting to have a feeling that 150 lbs might be my happy weight for a while.   Planning on posting more about that later though.

4.  Once I’m done with this, I really need to work on tempo runs.  Maybe start the week running the distance slow enough that I am FOR SURE going to be able to keep one pace and then keep upping it until it’s a challenge, but do-able.  Running one pace and slow just BORES me though, especially on a treaddy.  However, it seems like an important skill to have for a runner.  Maybe?

5.  Anyone start feeling intimidated by the sheer number of time you have to put in to log the miles you need to run/increase in the last half of training the first time you did a half or a marathon?  I’m just looking at the training schedule coming up and when I don’t see any days under 4.5 miles (and then none under 5 miles in 2 weeks)…oy.  I’m thinking next week is when I’m going to have to make some modifications.  First thing to go is one strength session a week – I’ll split a full body workout into 2 half body workouts so it goes from 45-60 minutes to 20-30 mins.  Then, I’ll start counting any bike riding I do on the weekends against my Wednesday cross training day.  Yoga will be non-negotiable.

A little gloomy?  Mebbe.  I’m sure it will pass by the time I get a run or 2 under my belt this week.  What’s going on out there in internet land?  Any sunshine for me?