Half Marathon Training, Week 2

How did the first week go?  I’ll tell ya.

About to do the chicken (turkey) dance?

Monday: 5 mile pace (let’s call it a tempo)

Check.  I felt much better after completing this one.  Instead of BARELY finishing under 10 min/mile pace, I came in at 46 and some change.  Much closer to where I need to be.  It was a little faster than normal tempo pace for the rest of the training, but more purposed towards a “test run” for my race.

Tuesday: DDR circuit (these are still kicking my butt wonderfully)

Check.  This is great cross training.  I need to come up with something else to do occasionally but damn it’s a nice little cardio/weights/awesome home butt kicking workout all in an hour.

Wednesday: yoga/rest

Check.  I actually wanted to work out this day and felt weird resting but it was all good because then I was rested for my…

Thursday: 5 mile RACE (let’s call this my long run)

Check.  I was aiming for under 45 minute, but once I ran through the course itself with it’s myriad of HILLS (there is one street on the course I hate WALKING up or BIKING up, let alone running as fast as I can up it towards the end of the 5th mile), I was perfectly happy with 45:50.  A little intimidated that it’s right about the pace I’m aiming to run the half at, but hey, I’ve got 11 weeks, right? 🙂

Friday: DDR circuit

Check.  Didn’t want to, but did it anyway.  Felt just dandy after.

Saturday: 4×400 sprints (1 mile w/up + c/down, 400m recovery in between)

Check.  Zliten and I went to the track and he got a nice jog in while I did my sprints.  All sprints were between 1:50 – 1:58.  It was a little harder than I remembered, but I also think I was not 100% and starting to get sick.

Sunday: rest

Oh yeah.  I was pretty much in sick mode and didn’t leave the couch much at all besides some delicious chinese food.

15k people on a Thursday morning look like this.

So what’s up for this next week?

To be quite honest, I feel crappy and unsure about even calling this week 2.  Mostly, because I feel crappy myself.  Yesterday I started to come down with something (ok, probably Saturday but I ignored it…bad Quix) and today it’s still here.  My throat is sore, my nose is a wee bit runny and plugged, and I’m going from hot to cold to hot to cold to hot in literally 5 minutes.  Normally, I’m just coldcoldcold *momentofcomfort* coldcoldcold, so I know I’m out of whack.

I probably could push through and run today if my life depended on it,  hell, a year or 2 ago I probably would have, but after reading up on workouts while sick, the general consensus is:

-Stick to light/moderate intensity workouts and no heavy weights.  Sadly, I don’t think sprints are in this category.

-If you just have head cold symptoms, you can workout (but still lighter than normal).  I don’t have any lung issues, but the fact that I sweat through 2 pairs of PJs last night and the hotcoldhotcold makes me think that perhaps it’s a sign to chillax.

-If you’re feeling tired, it’s probably best to rest (and considering I rested ALL DAY yesterday, went to sleep at 11pm, dragged myself out of bed at 9:30am, and I’m still dragging ass today – I’ll call that tired).

And this is what 15k people look like once they get going...

So the plan for this next week was:

Monday: 4×800 sprints

Tuesday: DDR circuit

Wednesday: 4 mile tempo

Thursday: DDR circuit

Friday: 6 mile run

Weekend: rest

Obviously, this is not going to happen.  I expect the week to look more like this:

Monday: sleeeeeep

Tuesday: light DDR (no weights)

Wednesday: 4 mile VERY SLOW

Thursday: DDR circuit

Friday: 4×800 sprints

Saturday: 6 mile run

Sunday: rest

I normally would not do sprints and my long run back to back, but considering 6 miles isn’t THAT long, I can probably do it, as long as I’m feeling 100% by then.  It’s also entirely possible that the week might look like this, depending on how long I feel crappy:

Monday:  sleeeeeep

Tuesday: sleeeeeeep

Wednesday: walk around the block

Thursday: light DDR

Friday: walk around the two surrounding blocks

Weekend: rest

I am just going to play it by ear.  If I feel crappy, I’m gonna rest.  If I feel ok, I’m going to workout.  I’m also going to remember that I have 10 more weeks after this one to make it through, and the only way to do that is to recover fully as quickly as possible.  And risking injury by pushing through workouts when I feel this crappy is NOT the way to do it.

There we go. Race 6. Soon my toes are gonna have to get in on the action...

NaNoWriMo:

Fail.  30.5k words still.  I might write a little tonight but I sorta quit on it this week.  I threw a little temper tantrum about it and realized that the most important thing to come out of this with is a renewed sense of love for writing and the knowledge that writing a book is not nearly as daunting of a task as I thought it was.  Writing everyday is daunting.  Promising to do anything every day for me is daunting.  Beyond waking up, brushing my teeth, eating something, reading something on the internet, and going to sleep, there is nothing I do every day.  I need days off work.  I need days off working out.  I need days off being responsible.  Writing is no different.

That’s not to say I don’t love writing (or working out, or whatnot).  I just can’t spend two hours of my day every day doing it with all my other responsibilities and hobbies and need for a social life (pshaw).  So, the plan going forward is to dedicate 6 hours per week – about my workout time on a normal week.  1.5 hours x2 weekdays, and 3 hours on a weekend.  Once I finish, I’ll dedicate the time to editing.  If that seems like a comfortable amount of time to spend per week, I’ll continue that into 2010 and start a new one.

So what’s up this week for you?  What is your best cold cure?  Do you work out when you’re sick?