Mom of All Trades: Napa Training Week 1 and Monumental Weekend

Week 1 of training is in the books!

I had some good days and some bad days. This is how it went.

Sunday - Rest. Spent the whole day at work.

Monday - 3 miles. Probably the worst 3 miles I've run in quite some time. I didn't get out til noon. It was about 80 degrees outside and windy. I ran on the roads by my house. I'd forgotten how open and hilly they were compared to the Monon. I was still really tight from the race on Saturday and dead tired from working all weekend. I really wanted to stop after half a mile but kept telling myself it was only 3 miles!

Tuesday - 6 miles. Easy run indoors on the hamster track.

Wednesday - 3 miles. Same route as Monday but felt better.

Thursday - Rest. Spent the whole day at work and was ready to drop when I got home
.
Friday - 6 miles. This was my pace run day. I was suppose to run 6 miles at 8:45 pace. It should have been a piece of cake. NOT! It was 40 degrees, raining, and windy. I thought for 2 seconds about hamster tracking it but decided I couldn't deal with the mental math involved since I can't use my Garmin to pace myself indoors. I just sucked it up and went outside.

Mile 1 - 8:43. Didn't feel too bad.
Mile 2 - 8:51. I started tightening up and felt horrible. Lately I've been feeling totally trashed the day after a long shift at work... this day being no exception.
Mile 3 - 9:55. I needed a breather. Better to run slow than quit all together but I was ready to quit!
Mile 4 - 9:39
Mile 5 - 9:19
Mile 6 - 8:54
Average pace was 9:13. No where close to 8:45. I was just a very hard run in the rain and wind.

As soon as the run was over though, Monumental weekend began!

Some of my Sole Sisters from my online running group came into town for the race - there was Tammy from New Hampshire (crazy woman drove here with her friend Michelle), Amanda from Missouri, and Araminta from Virginia. We met up at the Race Expo, looked around, and picked up our race packets. I had to leave them to do kid stuff for awhile but met back up with them at Trena's house for dinner.

Araminta, Tammy, me, Trena, Amanda, and Michelle

The next morning we met up at Tammy and Michelle's hotel to run the race. Trena and Tammy ran the full. Amanda, Araminta, and I ran the half. Michelle was there to cheer us on.

Tammy and Amanda pre-race

Me and Araminta post-race

Araminta and I ran the whole race together. It was cool to see the text alerts at the end where we had the exact same time.

I did exactly what the training plan said for the day - low intensity 13 mile run. Didn't do anything stupid and enjoyed my run, which, by the way, was very COLD! Depending on where you looked, this was the forecast for the race...