A fairly quiet week as we slip into the back half of training - Week 9!
Sunday 10/1: Planned - Rest / Actual - Random gym session
A rare unplanned, quiet day, or mostly so! I'd skipped the gym on the prior Thursday because I didn't want to be sore for my race, so this was my planned makeup day. Quads were a bit sore from the race as usual, so I kept things relatively light but by the time I'd done a few sets of squats my legs were definitely over it. Ended up skipping deadlifts and doing some more arm stuff instead, which is fine. After the gym, I spent some time working on my costume for the Halloween themed 5K I'm doing later in October, and otherwise bummed around the house, got caught up on meal prep, all that fun stuff.
Monday 10/2: Planned - 40 minutes @ Z2 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 40 minutes @ Z2 + 10:11 cooldown (3.5 miles)
Getting used to getting up in the very dark, and in this case, cold! It was quite chilly and I had to pull out a long-sleeved shirt for this longish slow run. Could have possibly even used gloves as my hands tend to stay colder than anything else until I really get moving. It was a nice change from the heat and humidity, though! DOMS not too bad from gymming + race, so that's nice.
Tuesday 10/3: Planned - Intervals: 10 minutes warmup + (8 minutes @ Z4 + 2 minutes @ Z2) x 3 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 10 minutes warmup + (8 minutes @ Z4 + 2 minutes @ Z2) x 3+ 11:03 cooldown (4.07 miles)
Another brisk morning, but not quite as cool as the day before. Still wore a long sleeved shirt, though one of my lighter ones. Got to cover my full 4-mile neighborhood route, which has been a bit of a rarity this training cycle! It's a little hillier over on that side, which is probably a good thing for me. I'd been thinking after the 10K that I need to do some more hills-focused work, and the way the intervals fell here meant I was pushing pretty hard on the uphills, which is good. On the other hand, when a Z4 section came on a downhill segment, I frequently fell out of the zone. Not sure how to feel about that. Running downhill in the dark, I can only confidently go so fast, though, and I'd rather be safe than hurt myself.
Wednesday 10/4: Planned - 30 minutes @ Z2 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 30 minutes @ Z2 + 11:53 cooldown (3 miles) AND evening random gym session
Normal easy Wednesday, plus I hit the gym after work because I had plans for Thursday evening this week. Was able to get back to close to my normal working weights after Sunday's lighter session.
Thursday 10/5: Planned - Rest / Actual - Rest
Lots of random walking but no actual running. A day off!
Friday 10/6: Planned - Fartlek: 45 minutes + 5-10 minutes cooldown (on hills, 90% max effort) / Actual - Fartlek: 45 minutes + 5:18 cooldown (4.26 miles)
I'd been anticipating this workout though with mixed anxiety and eagerness - it's almost like the plan knew I was going to be thinking about hills and dropped this workout in just for me. It was definitely challenging, especially trying to judge 90% of max effort as opposed to 90% of max speed. I was relatively quick for my neighborhood, though, considering I had to do some extra distance just to get in a 5 minute cooldown!
This run was dedicated to a fellow runnit member whose birthday was Wednesday and is going to be at Eagle Up.
Saturday 10/7: Planned - 70 minutes @ Z2 + 20 minutes @ Z4 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 70 minutes @ Z2 + 20 minutes @ Z4 + 17:47 cooldown (8.11 miles)
Had a lot to do this Saturday, so I got up pretty early and headed downtown. This was a run that would put me over 500 miles for the year, and I'd mapped out a planned route that would get me close to 8 for the day though I wasn't sure I'd need all of it. For whatever reason, I felt like running the West End Bridge and had apparently decided that I needed to run over all 3 rivers as a sort of celebration, so the route I'd planned took me by the stadiums, out to the West End, through Station Square, up the river trail parallel to Carson, across the 10th Street Bridge, then back across Downtown, up through the Strip and across the 16th Street Bridge back to where I parked. I didn't quite manage to execute it, but got pretty close and still got my three rivers! And as a bonus, I got to see a lovely sunrise and city skyline right at the beginning of the run.
This is the first time I'd run most of that route by myself, but wasn't too worried as we'd done several training runs there in the spring, but I haven't done some of it since the Pittsburgh Half. My memory served well though, and I got to Station Square at around the halfway point, which was the perfect time and spot for a bathroom break before continuing. I goofed up running the trail parallel to Carson and missed my turn to get to the bridge and ended up adding some distance here as I had to run a while before I could get back up to Carson itself and get on the bridge. Once I got back over to the Downtown side I pretty much improvised, and keeping an eye on the distance on my watch, took as direct a route as possible back to my car since I'd already hit my time goal for the day.
I wasn't sure how it was going to feel attempting to push into Z4 after running more than an hour at Z2, but it went all right. This section coincided with my missed turn so that was a bit awkward since I essentially started running faster in the wrong direction as soon as I realized what had happened, but it worked out in the end!
And then I pulled out my PRO Compression socks for recovery, which was absolute heaven...
Weekly Total Time: 5:01:14 (up 1:31:13 from Week 8)
Weekly Total Distance: 22.96 (up 6.16 miles from Week 8)
Weight Lost: Down about a pound, still shifting water weight from post-PR eating - I'll take it!
Next week: Week 10 is a bit weird as it gives me an extra rest day for reasons that aren't clear to me. I'll probably end up running anyway as I don't want to drop weekly mileage unless I'm feeling fatigued.
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