Perhaps 10 miles on Thursday was a bad idea... or maybe I just need more training weeks like this and suck it up on the Saturday races...
Sunday 4/9 - Rest
Monday 4/10 - 4 miles. Easy run on the hamster track in the evening. It was threatening rain and lightening so I ran indoors.
Tuesday 4/11 - 10 miles. Run club speed session workout was 2 mile warm up, 5 x 1 mile repeats at 10K pace with 3:30 recovery jog in between, then 2 mile warm down. Ran my miles in 8:12, 8:10, 8:10, 8:08, and 8:14 so it was a good work out.
Wednesday 4/12 - 800 meter swim. I think this is the first time I've been in the pool since the Indoor Triathlon. First half was OK, then I had to share the lane and kept running into the lane divider and the open swim started and there was some kid screaming his head off the whole time so I decided 800 meters was enough.
Thursday 4/13 - 10 miles. I had it in my head I needed a long run this week and that Tuesday's run didn't count as it was speed work. It was a beautiful day and I envisioned going 15 miles. Well... it was a HOT beautiful day; hot like over 80 degrees by the time I hit the Monon at 4:30 pm. I decided to head South as I didn't have any water with me and I knew there would be water out in front of the Athletic Annex about 3 miles down from the Y. I figured I'd hit that, then keep going South and hit it again on my way back. By the time I hit 5 miles though I was BEAT so I turned around and cut it short to 10.
Friday 4/14 - Zero miles. I had planned to do about 4 but my legs felt dead and I was racing the next day so I took the day off.
Saturday 4/15 - 7 miles. Tour de Trails 8K in Columbus. I felt so tired on Friday I considered not racing, especially since I hadn't even pre-registered. I looked at the race website one last time on Friday night and decided to run. I needed to do this. Goal was to run 8:00 miles and finish under 40:00. I have not run many 8Ks so my PR at this distance is 39:40. I didn't feel like I was in PR shape but sub-40:00 also seemed like a reasonable goal given how I felt on Tuesday.
The weather on Saturday morning was perfect. Overcast with a slight breeze but not windy by any means and temps around 60 degrees. Not too cold and not too hot for a short race. Did a 1 mile warm up, then it was race time.
Gun went off... and then I realized my Garmin wasn't tracking. Arghhhh!! I thought about running without it but then decided to reset it. When I tried to do this I realized it had never started in the first place. I think I was at 0.1 miles when it finally started tracking. I figured I'd go by it as all I really wanted to know was if I could keep an 8:00 pace. So... per my Garmin...
Mile 1 - 7:57
Mile 2 - 8:02
Mile 3 - 8:18. It started sprinkling rain. It actually felt really good but I was breathing hard.
Mile 4 - 8:28. Ugh. Why does it always fall apart at mile 4?
Last 0.96 - 8:08. This is a calculated time as I subtracted my mile 1-4 times from my final time so it's more like the time for my first 0.1 and last 0.86. Nonetheless, I do feel like I was able to speed back up at the end.
Official finish time - 40:37. So, not exactly what I wanted to run but I got another good speed session in. Ended up third in the women's race, first in the 45-49 age group. They ran out of first place medals at the awards ceremony so I'm suppose to get mine in the mail. One mile cool down after that.
I did come to another realization after my race though... I was tired but NOTHING HURTS!!! I had no nagging pains during the race. In fact, I don't hurt anymore when I run and I'm no longer hanging on to shopping carts like walkers at the store or hobbling out of bed in the morning like I'm 80. I'm definitely not as fast as I was 1-2 years ago but I'm not in constant pain either. Hopefully it will stay that way as I pick up my training.
31 miles this week plus an 800 meter swim.
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