Last week was a solid week of training despite the fact that I traveled for more than half of it. I had a serious test of mental toughness during my solo speed workout Wednesday and another confidence boosting hilly long run in Sedona on Saturday.
I kicked off my free 10 day Bootcamp this week as well which includes sample workouts from various Beachbody programs. I tried to get in a few of the workouts my bootcampers were doing as well but given the travel it wasn’t as many as I would have liked.
Monday: 9 mile run with 3 x 7 min tempo (3 min recovery between). It was a beautiful day this day and I felt decent on this run. The 7 min tempos (around 7:30 pace average each) were tough – they felt almost as hard as those 1 mile repeats I did the prior week at 7:10 pace! But I did them at my goal pace and got it done, so that’s all that matters!
Tuesday: 21 Day Fix Extreme Dirty 30 – I miss this the previous week and wanted to get a full body strength training workout in before I left so I snuck this in around lunchtime. That afternoon I went out for a 50 min easy recovery run.
Wednesday: 6 am speed workout (8 miles) – this a was mental toughness workout. I planned to do it on the treadmill but my treadmill needs maintenance. There isn’t anywhere flat near my house so I did my intervals on a long stretch of sidewalk with a slight incline. Half of the intervals were up and half were down. Here’s the workout:
1 mile w/u
7 x 3:30 @5k pace with 3 min recovery
8 x 45 sec @ 10k, 30 sec @MGP, no recovery
Cooldown
I tried to do the downhill portion around 6:50 pace and the uphill around 7:30. It was SO tough, especially the uphill. I’m glad M2B is mostly downhill!
The last portion is another one of Jim’s “Vo2 Max boosters” that he’s been having us do at the end of our workouts. It was hard to really do it properly given the inclines/declines but I did my best. I felt accomplished after this one – it was HARD!
And then we drove 7 hours to Arizona! We stopped in Phoenix at our friend’s house on our way to Sedona. We got to catch up with them as well as see my close friend Lana in Scottsdale the next day on our way to Sedona. Her daughter is 6 weeks old and ADORABLE! It was so fun to see her and catch up.
Thursday: 30 min recovery run. Mike and I got away quickly to do a recovery run while our friend watched Siena. It was nice to run together! This was meant to be a 50 min run but I wasn’t worried that we had to cut it short to get back on the road. We stopped at my friend Lana’s house on the way and then arrived in beautiful Sedona! Mike’s parents rented a cabin and we stayed there with them and his sister Claire (who is 21 weeks pregnant with a girl! yay!) and her husband Josh. We celebrated Mike’s mom’s birthday and his parents 40th wedding anniversary while we were there. The 6:1 adult/child ratio was awesome – we were able to actually relax a bit!
Friday: 45 min hike with the family (Siena hiked half! I was so proud of her) and later Barre 1 from “The 20’s” series. This workout is only available on Beachbody on Demand and I’d never tried it before. I’m running a free 10 day bootcamp right now and this was one of the workouts scheduled. Of course I had to try it for myself! It was actually harder than I thought – lots of lower body and core. I enjoyed it! It’ll definitely be a good one to throw in when I’m short on time. 
Saturday: 16 mile trail run with 2,000 feet elevation gain overall. This run was AWESOME!!! I talked to the guy working at the local trial running store in Sedona and asked for a route that had loops so I could go back to the car for water. Mike said he would do one loop with me, but we ended up doing the nearly 5 mile Mescal Loop, followed by the 4 mile Truck Wagon Loop with an added 2 mile out and back to the top of the very highly trafficked Devils’s Bridge, for a total of 11 miles! Mike hasn’t run over 8 miles since Siena was born (and hasn’t run much at all in the last few months) so this was huge! We hiked most of the Devil’s Bridge portion and slowly ran the rest. We had to do two shallow river crossings (took off our shoes and socks to do it) for the Truck Wagon Loop. 
Once we got back to the car, I finished my run with another Mescal Loop, bringing my mileage to 16 miles. I felt GREAT on this run. I had so much energy, even at the end. Mike asked me if I wanted to cut the run off at 11 miles but I really felt like I had a lot more in me for that final loop and ran it hard. I’m not going to lie, our overall pace was SLOW especially since we had to hike/walk portions, mostly the touristy track, and my total moving time was over 3 hours for 16 miles (and it took us 4 hours from the time we parked til we left including the stops we made). This was a great exercise in TIME ON YOUR FEET. I felt great after and didn’t even feel too wiped out that night and the next day. Definitely a confidence booster!
I must also admit that this tempted me to want to sign up for a 50k trail run. I always forget how much I love trail running until I do it! Maybe one day that’ll happen, but probably not in the near future.
Sunday: Sunday was the recovery day from heaven (minus the fact that I went to bed late, was up in the middle of the night briefly with Siena and woke up early, though Mike did let me sleep for another hour or so after she got up!). We made french toast with Mike’s family and then Claire and I headed to a local spa for a dip in the hot tub (me only) and then a massage. When we got home I did P90x3 Yoga (part of my bootcamp) – I forgot how great of a 30 min yoga routine this is!
Weekly Totals:
- Miles Run: 40
- Strength Workouts: 80 min
I felt like our vacation was a nice balance of relation and exercise. I love exercising so much that honestly I really like to get it in on vacation in some way! Usually it’s in the form of a long walk or hike and maybe a run or two, but this trip was the first time I brought along my computer to do Beachbody on Demand. It was incredibly convenient and the workouts were short enough that I didn’t feel like I was missing out on fun to do them.
Do you usually try to fit in workouts on vacation? What is the coolest place away from home that you’ve done a long run?
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