Mill Race Training Week 1 - I Can't Count, Heat Training, and Abby Brinkman 5K

First off, I guess I can't count. I thought I had 18 weeks until the Mill Race Marathon on September 23rd. Turns out it's 17 weeks. Somehow when I was marking off the weeks on my calendar I counted the last couple days of May as Week 1, then turned the page and counted the first couple days of June as Week 2 when it was all the same week. Oh well...

Sunday May 28th - Rest

Monday May 29th - 3 miles. Easy road miles by my house. It was hot but tolerable for the distance.

Tuesday May 30th - 6 miles. Run Club workout. Did a 1 mile warm up, then 1:00 hard, 2:00 recovery, 2:00 hard, 2:00 recovery, 3:00 hard, 2:00 recovery, 4:00 hard, 2:00 recovery, 5:00 hard, 2:00 recovery, then back down again. Cooled down to make 6 miles. It was another hot night but the miles went by faster broken up in intervals. I hit around 7:30 pace for the 1-3 minute intervals and around 8:30 pace for the 4-5 minute intervals. Averaged 9:30 pace for the whole thing, which included the warm up, cool down, and stopping for the light at 75th Street on the way back (which just KILLS your momentum... or at least mine!)

Wednesday May 31st - 12.5 miles. Couple of bad decisions today. First off, I should have run earlier in the day... but I had to help my husband drop a car off for repairs in the morning and then baby sit the air conditioning people at our house until hubs got back from running errands, so I didn't get out the door until after 10 am.

I had a fuel belt strapped around my waist with two bottles of water and some Gatorade chews when I left the house. However, I REALLY hate carrying stuff with me when I run. So, mistake number two... as I walked down my driveway it was shady with a little breeze going and I decided I really didn't need to bring all this stuff with me. It was only 13 miles. I run 10 all the time without water. I left the fuel belt at the end of the driveway.

I could have run loops that came by my house so I could have water if needed, however I always risk not going back out and finishing my run when I do this so I decided I was going an out and back route instead. Another bad choice. I was doing OK until mile 9 when I completely overheated. It was well over 80 degrees and I was running a stretch with no shade when I started seeing all kinds of black dots in my visual field and had to walk about a tenth of a mile to clear my head. Once I started walking, it was all over... 4 miles is a freaking long way when your pace slows to a crawl. I ended up walking a couple more stretches and was half a mile short of my intended 13 when I finally made it back to my driveway well past 12:30 pm. Ugh. Definitely got my heat training in today.
Then I had to go to work.

Thursday June 1st - Rest. If you can call it that. Got home from work at 3:30 am. Slept til 6:30 am, then got up to go to the Honor's Day activities for my kids' last day of school. G's started at 7:40 am and J's at 8:30 am. The high school program didn't get over until 11 am. The high school kids got out early so I had to go back and pick G up from the middle school at 2:45 pm. Then I tried to lay down a little bit before leaving for work again at 4 pm.

Friday June 2nd - 3 miles. Got home from work at 4 am. Slept for a couple hours, then picked G up in Carmel at 2 pm. Got my miles in on the road by my house in the early evening. Hot again.
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Saturday June 3rd - 6 miles. Worked on more speed at the Abby Brinkman 5K this morning. I haven't really done much racing or speed work lately so I didn't have any huge expectations for this race but I wanted to get some speed in. Started off with a 2 mile warm up and decided it was a beautiful morning... not terribly hot yet and the People Trail was mostly shaded. Race started at 8 am.

Well, OUR race started at 8 am. The Girls on the Run/Trailblazers race started on the same course at 8:05 am. There were 94 people in our race. There were over 400 people for Girls on the Run/Trailblazers... and all of us were on the out and back course on the People Trail. My goal was to get as far as I could before I ran smack dab into 400 people, which happened right after the 2 mile mark. It got a bit hairy and I almost mowed down two little boys who couldn't follow directions and stay on their side of the trail. That being said, my splits...

Mile 1 - 7:41. Felt pretty good.
Mile 2 - 8:16. Eewww.
Mile 3 - 8:32. Bleck... pretty much sucking wind and dodging kids.

Official finish time - 24:48.
Ended up 2nd in the women's race and 1st in the 40-49 age group.

1 mile cool down after that.

30.5 miles this week.

Looking back, I think I'm the poster child of inconsistency. Last week I ran 12 miles, 11 the week before that, then 9 the week before that. Not the greatest lead up to marathon training but Week 1 is done.