Officially a quarter of the way through the plan! Week 4 went pretty well...
Sunday 8/27: Planned - Rest / Actual - Rest
Got all fancied up and went to the Pittsburgh Renaissance Festival in the morning! This is the first time I've been there for opening - they do a little skit outside the gates to welcome everyone. Over the years I've acquired enough garb to go more or less in costume (with a little help from strategic purchases at Gabes) and it was a lovely cool and partly sunny day. So I got into my corset, skirt, strapped on my belts and pouches, and spent a fun morning shopping, listening to music, and enjoying the general atmosphere. I typically buy one thing to add to my outfit every year and this year I added a little potion bottle to the mix. I joked that the whole point is to strap as much stuff to your hips as possible, but really, am I wrong?
Sunday afternoon/evening was D&D, which was an intense session in which our party fended off a multitude of angry and/or frightened critters (we haven't figured out what was chasing them just yet). Everyone survived, but my bard is shaken up after being tackled by the dire wolf she was taunting, and our ranger got (temporarily?) turned to stone, so next session should be interesting for sure. Our wizard rolled uncommonly well when loot was being decided and we got some pretty cool stuff that we don't quite know what to do with yet. Slowly inching closer to level 5 - probably about 3-4 more sessions!
Monday 8/28: Planned - 40 minutes @ Z2 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 40 minutes @ Z2(ish) + 10:17 cooldown (3.5 miles)
Woke up early Monday morning (if my run's going to be longer than ~40 minutes I need to set the alarm for 5:45) and started getting ready only to almost immediately discover that my heart rate strap was missing! In all the shuffling after Run Around the Square I apparently left it at Mike's. Shot him a quick text to let me know if it was there when he woke up (at a more reasonable hour) and crawled back into bed. Wasn't really able to get back to sleep because my brain kept turning over all the things I needed to get done at work that day, but I enjoyed the extra hour of laziness anyway.
Later that morning Mike messaged me back to let me know that he found the strap and that I could swing by after work to pick it up, and I was already figuring out how I could get my run in that evening. That would throw off my normal routine but I didn't really want to shift my week all around by waiting to run until Tuesday. So after dinner and catching up on Game of Thrones I pulled on my gear and got out the door.
It was a surprisingly good run! I'm not sure if it's because I went relatively close to after dinner (normally in the mornings I've been able to get away without eating beforehand, much to my surprise) or because I got an extra half day of "rest" but my heart rate didn't spike nearly so hard as it usually does on the hills and the run just felt kind of easy. That was good, since the plan was to get up and do it all again in the morning. One thing I did note is that I was wearing my oldest pair of shoes and maybe my feet weren't feeling as awesome - some random aches and pains during the run. They may be getting pretty close to retirement, so I'll have to keep an eye on that.
Tuesday 8/29: Planned - Intervals: 10 minutes warmup + (5 minutes @ Z4, 1.25 minute @ Z2) x 4 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - Intervals: 10 minutes warmup + (5 minutes @ Z4, 1.5 minute @ Z2) x 5 + 12:58 cooldown (3.5 miles)
Unsurprisingly, Tuesday morning's run was a bit more challenging. Especially since it was pretty much a back-to-back with not much more than a night's sleep between it and the previous run. I ended up extending the cooldown because I took my 3.5 mile route around the neighborhood. Watch is still doing the thing where the plan says that I should be in Z4 but the watch thinks I should be in Z3, so it yelled at me a lot during this run. Feet still a little whiny but I was wearing my Brooks Launch 4s, which I'm still adjusting to, slowly.
Wednesday 8/30: Planned - 30 minutes @ Z2 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 30 minutes @ Z2 + 5:17 cooldown (2.3 miles)
Since I'd extended the previous days' runs to use the full cooldown period, and because my feet were feeling a little grumpy, I kept this one short and sweet. Heart rate definitely indicated some fatigue on this, it wasn't nearly as easy as Monday, and I was looking forward to a day off (from running, anyway).
Thursday 8/31: Planned - Rest / Actual - Improvised lifting session #3
Back to the gym, which continues to be under renovation! They've knocked down some walls and put cardio equipment in what used to be a studio/classroom space, but still no new squat rack. The lady at the front tells me that the new treadmills are self-powered instead of with a motor - I wonder if they'd be better for me compared to the last treadmill I ran on years ago, but I'm hoping the weather won't ever force me to find out! Reno continues over the long Labor Day weekend, so I'm sure things will change again before my next visit.
I head to the back room, which is now somewhat in the same state of disarray as the rest of the place - the racks are on the other side of the room now which means a lot of weights-schlepping but whatever - bonus farmer carries! I ease into my big lifts (squat/deadlift) since it's been a couple weeks and I have no desire to trash my legs considering I know I have a long run coming up, but of course after lighter weights feel too easy I end up throwing on what I was using previously and going for it, and pretty quickly I can tell that my legs are going to let me know about it later. Oh well!
Squats/TRX rows, Deadlifts/pushups, kettlebell swings, dumbbell side bends, sit-ups, and back extensions. I get pretty sweaty and take a silly flexing selfie.
Friday 9/1: Planned - 40 minutes Fartlek + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 40 minutes Fartlek + 10:08 cooldown (3.77 miles)
I misjudged how far I was going to get on this run and took my 3 mile route, which meant I had to do an extra loop around the first part of my route to wrap up the cooldown, which then left me a little further away from home than I could cover in 10 minutes or less. But pretty close! DOMS from the previous night was definitely setting in already, so pushing for the 'fast' sections was a little more challenging - usually that takes about 24 hours to really catch up to me, but since it started around 12 I knew I was in for an interesting (and sore) couple of days! More motivation to make sure I'm regularly in the gym, anyway.
Saturday 9/2: Planned - 45 minutes @ Z2, 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 80 minutes @ Z2, + 10:54 cooldown (6.5 miles)
Since I missed the prior week's long run due to doing Run Around the Square, and I noticed that Week 4 has a little bit of a cutback, I decided to pull in Week 3's long run instead. SCRR was collecting new or lightly-used shoes for Houston, and it just so happens that I had a pair (off eBay; either they didn't mention that they were wide width, or I didn't notice) that I could contribute. The forecast was iffy; we were getting bands of the remnants from Harvey, but it looked like there would be an early morning window where it was clear. The afternoon's odds were better, but since we were hosting a board game day starting at noon, it was pretty much morning or nothing. I didn't want to bonk on my first kind of seriously long run of the cycle, so breakfast was similar to my half prep breakfast: mini bagel and PB, and I threw in two tiny mandarin oranges (I've been working on a bag all week).
Running for time and heart rate makes it difficult to participate in the SCRR group runs, so I figured I'd get there after everyone headed out (7:30), drop off the shoes, and then take advantage of the nice flat riverfront trail for a change of scenery as well as to make the hour and a half of running a bit easier. It was chilly and I'd be going pretty slowly, so I put on capris and the long-sleeved shirt from Run Around the Square the week prior, and brought along sweatpants and my Hot Chocolate 15K hoodie for after as I expected I'd be cold once I stopped moving.
It was perfect weather heading out, but it started sprinkling about a half hour in while I was on Herr's Island, and by the time I hit the halfway point I was absolutely drenched. Sigh. I don't hate running in the rain, but it was fairly unpleasant since the temperature wasn't all that high to begin with. I kept giving looks of solidarity at the other folks on the track who were pushing on just like I was. On the river, rowers carried on their rowing, and I tried to avoid the deeper puddles but on a crushed limestone path (not all of the trail is paved) there's only so much you can do. Once you're far enough away from your car you're going to have to run in the rain anyway, so might as well get on with it. By the time I got out to the furthest accessible part of the trail in Millvale (I was kind of improvising since it's hard to tell how much distance I'm going to cover on a given day) and turned around, it started lightening up, and with about 20 minutes to go it had stopped entirely. That left me with a damp and chilly finish, and I ended up about a quarter mile away from my car when I hit the end of 10 minutes in the cooldown, but very close to 6.5 miles, so I hit 'Resume' and finished that off, then walked the rest of it.
Back at the car I managed to get out of my soaked shirt and pulled on the hoodie, and cranked up the heat in the car for the drive home. With about a mile to go I'd gotten pretty hungry but didn't have anything with me. I was tempted to try to find a Starbucks but knowing that board game day would have lots of junk (though I'd stocked the fridge with carrots and grapes to share too!), I settled for a microwaved cup of chicken noodle soup when I got home, and that was actually perfect. Eventually people showed up for games and we had a great time!
Weekly Total Time: 4:34:36 (up 1 hour 4 minutes from Week 3)
Weekly Total Distance: 19.6 (up 3.4 miles from Week 3)
Weight Lost: I normally "count" Saturday morning weigh ins (as it's the furthest from any fluctuations caused from indulgences the prior weekend) but between DOMS from the gym Thursday and my lovely unpredictable cycle I was retaining water like a mofo. Sunday I saw the drop, however, and am down almost another two pounds this week! In another five pounds (ish) I'm going to reduce my deficit to help fuel my running, so assuming all goes well that will hopefully happen near the end of the month. :)
Next week: Week 5! I originally had said I'd switch over to Higdon after Week 4 if I wasn't feeling it with this plan, but so far I'm digging it, so no plans to do that at this point. It's hard to say for sure but I definitely feel like I'm seeing signs of improvement. No way to know for sure unless I keep going!
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