As I mentioned in my last post, I've just started training for the Amish Country Half Marathon in Berlin, OH on November 25, 2017. I also decided to switch things up from the Hal Higdon plans I've followed before and try a Garmin Connect training plan, particularly the HR based Intermediate plan. Last week was Week 1 - here's how it went!
Sunday 8/6: Planned - Rest / Actual - Rest
Spent a good chunk of the day with Mike - we saw The Dark Tower and had dinner. Movie was...about as bad as I expected it to be? Sigh.
Monday 8/7: Planned - 35 minutes @ Z2 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - Rest
I got up and it was raining. I didn't feel like going to work after getting wet and chilly, especially on Day 1, so I pulled Wednesday's rest day to here and pushed the schedule back.
Tuesday 8/8: Planned - 40 minutes @ Z3 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 35 minutes @ Z2(ish) + 5:11 cooldown (2.5 miles)
I thought I'd figured out how to transfer workouts to my watch but when I got up and out the door, no dice. This one was simple and I was able to do it on my own, thankfully. And I learned pretty much right away that running in Z2 is TOUGH! I really struggled with having to basically walk or shuffle even slower than my walking pace to keep my heart rate low enough. My home route is pretty hilly which is good on the overall, but makes this extra difficult.
Wednesday 8/9: Planned - Rest / Actual - 40 minutes @ Z3(ish) + 10:29 cooldown (3.5 miles)
This felt a little better especially compared to the slowness of Z2, but hills still made me have to slow down and shuffle to recover heart rate quite a bit.
Thursday 8/10: Planned - 40 minutes cross training / Actual - 30 minutes improvised gym session
My gym is under renovations and this was my first time back since they closed for a weekend to move in new equipment and remove a lot of old stuff. It was pretty disorienting when I walked in, and I sussed out pretty quickly that the old squat rack seemed to be gone without an evident replacement. Asking at the front desk, they confirmed that it would be replaced but hadn't been yet, and offered to let me in to the area where they hold classes that has a bunch of power cages, etc. It's not normally open to base-level members but apparently that's the interim solution.
I actually really enjoyed using the space, and the equipment was slightly better and more varied (bumper plates!) so depending on how renovations go I might consider increasing my membership level to get access to that room (when they aren't having classes, anyway). I'd been doing Strong Curves during training breaks from running but since I'm only going to be in the gym for weights about once a week now, I'm kind of making it up as I go along. Thursday I did some squats, some chin ups (band assisted), a few overhead presses, pushups, and deadlifts. I definitely felt the impact of my calorie deficit here as my lifts were weaker than they'd been a couple weeks prior, but that's life!
Friday 8/11: Planned - 25 minutes Fartlek + 5-10 mins cooldown / Actual - 25 minutes Fartlek + 5:04 cooldown (2.5 miles)
I was excited to get to wear my new Launch 4s for the first time since they're plausibly slightly better for speedwork than my Rides (or so I kept telling myself, anyway!). I normally wear a womens' size 10 and a 10.5 in running shoes, but the fit guide advised getting an 11 in these as they run a little small. The toe box felt a little roomier than I'm used to at first, but once I was out the door I didn't really notice it anymore. It did feel like the area under my forefoot was a lot less padded than what I'm used to, but I enjoyed my run. Not sure if it was the intent of the plan, but running "fast" after a few days of slowing down way more than I'm used to felt really good.
I didn't take any specific approach to my pacing other than "speed up and slow down sporadically" but tried to find around three levels of effort and then picked random landmarks on my path to choose when to switch effort. I was getting a bit tired by the end and slowed down but my overall pace is about what I normally run at in my neighborhood when I'm not doing HR zones, so I think it went okay?
Saturday 8/12: Planned - 60 minutes @ Z2, 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 60 minutes @ Z2(ish) + 7:51 cooldown (4 miles)
Running this slow is still super weird to me and I found myself turning over and over in my head if this was really the right program for me. I'm going to commit to it for four weeks at least, though, and see how it goes. Easy runs are supposed to be easy - and right now the biggest challenge is taking it easy enough to stay in zone. It did feel a bit more intuitive than Monday but my HR still went pretty high on those hills, and the longer I ran, the harder it was and the more I had to slow down to stay in zone. Hoping that struggling with this now will pay off in the long run!
Weekly Total Time: 3:08:37
Weekly Total Distance: 12.6 miles
Weight Lost: ~1 lb? It's tough to say as I'm not tracking the daily number like I have in the past, though I'm still getting on the scale every morning. I had a decent drop at the beginning of last week and then hovered around the same number every day until today, but I know that increasing workout times has an impact on how much water I'm carrying around, so I expect I'll see another drop soon.
Next week: Training Week 2! I'll be skipping the planned workout for Wednesday to run a fantastic Ice Cream 5K that is one of my favorite races ever. I set my standing 5K PR at this race last year and while I don't expect to beat it this year (being on a calorie deficit makes running waaay harder!), I'm still very much looking forward to it! My Saturday long run may get shifted to Sunday because I'll be traveling over the weekend (and beginning of Week 3), but I'm looking forward to running in new places at the very least.
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