Training just keeps going well. My legs seem to be recovering quickly from workouts and I’m surprised by how great I’ve felt overall. I’m now supplementing with glutamine and BCAAs daily (twice on hard workout days) in addition to my daily Shakeology – I’m not sure if that is helping or not, but I’m going to keep it up til race day!
Other than running, I did whatever workouts I wanted which ended up not being a lot as it was a really busy week coming back from vacation, trying to catch up on work (one disadvantage to working for yourself if you don’t get PTO!), having my family in town, planning and hosting a casual birthday party for Mike and going to a concert Saturday night! I plan to re-committ to 21 Day Fix (4-5 workouts/week) when my next challenge group starts on March 27th.
Monday: Rest Day. We spend 10 hours on the road coming back from Sedona. The most exercise I got was exercising my bladder to hold my pee while stuck in a 1.5 hour traffic jam in the middle of the desert.
Tuesday: 8.5 miles with 27 min tempo. My coach Jim never makes the tempo portion just “run comfortably hard” which actually really helps keep things interesting. It’s usually some variety of intervals within the tempo. This week was 90 seconds at 5k pace, 3 minutes at marathon pace, repeat (no recovery, essentiallyt he marathon pace is the recovery). I ended up doing this run at nearly 5 PM and I wasn’t feeling that great. I was a little nervous about how the tempo would go. I ended up feeling ok but toward the end my energy really went down and I just did the final 9 minutes of the tempo portion at goal marathon pace (8 min/miles) instead of adding in the 5k pace. This portion of the run was also uphill into a headwind, so I figured it was a good compromise!!! 
Wednesday: Upper Fix Extreme in the morning and group speed work (8 miles) in the evening.
- 1.25 mile w/u
- 4 x 1000 (w 800 @ 1/2 marathon final 200 @ 5k) , 30 sec rest + 400 @ 5k pace, then 3 minutes rest
- 12 x 30 sec @marathon goal pace, 30 sec @10K pace, continuous (coach says this is a V02 Max boosting workout)
- Cool down
My legs were heavy when I started this, thanks to doing my tempo run just 24 hours before. I wasn’t sure how it would go but it ending up feeling great! I’m not going to say it was easy, because it wasn’t, but it felt manageable – hard, but in a good way. I ran the entire workout with a small group which helped me push the pace even harder than I would have. Paces for the 5k were generally around 6:50-7 min/miles and half marathon pace was generally around 7:30. The 12 minute segment at the end felt good and it was hard to keep my pace for the fast portion at 10k pace – it kept slipping down to low 7s. The recovery portion at marathon goal pace felt so much easier, despite still being fast (high 7s, low 8s). This was another confidence boosting workout.
Thursday: P90X3 Yoga. I was feeling sore and tired from the day before and didn’t have a real opportunity to get out to run becuase my dad and step mom were visiting so I decided to just do yoga and push my recovery run to Friday.
Friday: 45 min easy stroller run. Nice and easy on St. Patricks’ Day! This was Mike’s birthday and we had friends over for appetizers/drinks that night so it was a fun day all around! 
Saturday: 18.6 mile long run. The group ran another route I would NEVER do on my own. We ended up running some the trails near my house which is ironic becuase I’d never do a long run from my house (too hilly, too many stop lights). The goal for this run was to run easy until mile 15 and then pick it up for the last 3 miles to goal pace (ended up running a little extra though). Kelly and I ran alone together and when we got to 15 miles, we started to pick it up. She ran the first two pace miles with me (8:10 average) and then told me to go ahead while she finished up (she was running 20 that day as she’s running the Big Sur Marathon). I ran the last 1.6 miles at a 7:50 average and felt AMAZING! It felt good to feel so strong at the end of a run. Major runner’s high on this one.
After the run I decided to try an ice bath for the first time. Mike and I had plans to do a date night and go to a concert (our friend Sean O’Donnell was opening for Yellowcard at a venue in North Park) and I wanted to recover the best I can for my half marathon this weekend. The ice bath was a major fail because I didn’t buy enough ice, but maybe it helped a little becuase my legs felt pretty good and I didn’t feel like my energy was totally zapped the rest of the day.
Sunday: 4.5 mile easy trail run with Mike. Siena stayed with my sister and brother in law Saturday night so we got to sleep in til 9:30, get coffee and go for a run (and even get an uninterrupted lunch out!). It was really nice!
Weekly Totals:
- Miles Run: 44
- Hours Strength/CrossTraining: 1
Last week was a great week of training mixed with a ton of fun! Unfortunately this week I’ve come down with a mild cold (Siena got it first and I’ve been sanitizing like crazy to avoid getting it but it’s pretty much impossible) which makes me less optimistic about my half marathon this Sunday. Either way, I wasn’t tapering for the race so I knew it wouldn’t be a PR, but I’m still a bit disappointed not to be at my best for Sunday. We’ll see! Race report early next week.
How was your week? Anyone a Yellowcard/Sean O’Donnell fan!?
What brand and dosage of glutamine and bcca’s do you take?
I use Optimum Nutrition!
You’re killin’ it! Keep up the good work!
thanks friend!