Will this summer ever end? Let's look at what happened in Week 10.
Sunday 10/8: Planned - Rest / Actual - Rest?
Technically a rest day, though I spent it preparing for and then attending a friend's 30th birthday party. Their rainbow unicorn glitter birthday party. Many snacks were consumed, drinks were had, calories were not counted, and I'm still picking glitter off of basically everything more than a week later. This is how we live now!
 |
| This was *before* the party even started... |
Monday 10/9: Planned - 30 minutes @ Z2 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 30 minutes @ Z2 + 13:49 cooldown (3.06 miles)
As opposed to the week prior when it was unseasonably chilly, this morning it was not only incredibly humid, but raining pretty steadily! For whatever reason, I was undeterred, and I got my workout in despite the gross weather. I think I prefer when it starts raining after I've already gotten away from my house so I'm not tempted to just stay in, but I got this one done.
Tuesday 10/10: Planned - Intervals: 10 minutes warmup + (5 minutes @ Z4 + 1 minute @ Z2) x 5 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 10 minutes warmup + (5 minutes @ Z4 + 1 minute @ Z2) x 5 + 10:52 cooldown (4.08 miles)
Another very humid morning, and it was threatening to rain again but never got to anything more than a sprinkle, which was actually pretty refreshing. I'm noticing more and more that I continue to struggle keeping my heart rate up high enough on downhill sections, but there's only so much I can do without switching to running after work, which I'm really not interested in.
Wednesday 10/11: Planned - Rest?? / Actual - 3.04 mi @ 40:59
No idea why there was no Wednesday run this week, but I felt fine so I went ahead and put down 3 easy miles before work. Weather was a little more pleasant!
Thursday 10/12: Planned - Rest / Actual - Random gym session
Gym renovations have continued but still no big changes or new squat rack(s). That's okay, I don't mind using the power cages in the back for as long as they'll let me. There was another guy squatting so I had to do a little workaround to not be in his way, but it went all right. Work has been crappy during the week and it was nice to take some frustration out with the weights. Biggest gripe of the evening was that it was HOT in there, yuck. Got my 30 minutes in and got the heck out before I melted.
Friday 10/13: Planned - Fartlek Intervals: 10 minutes warmup + (10 mins Fartlek + 2 minutes @ Z2) x 3 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 10 minutes warmup + (10 mins Fartlek + 2 minutes @ Z2) x 3 + 10:43 cooldown (4.01 miles)
I guess this weird workout was why the plan tried to give me an extra day off? Anyway, I sort of came up with my own plans for this. After checking out the elevation profile of the Amish Country Half I'd decided that I wasn't getting nearly enough elevation on my runs. I considered it for a bit and then decided that my best option was to go to the ugliest hill in my neighborhood - the one I have always left off any potential route ever - and conquer it.
I mapped it out after the fact... about 100 feet elevation gain in 1/3 mile. That should do me some good! My speed was definitely variable, so I suppose that counts for the Fartlek part of the run, but honestly I probably should have started doing this sooner. I'm going to add the hill to my normal routes as well as one day dedicated per week to hill repeats(ish - I go around the block so I'm not pounding down the steepest part over and over again). In this workout I went down and came up out of there five times, which isn't bad. My legs were pretty tired by the end of it but recovered well, so that's promising.
Saturday 10/14: Planned - 105 minutes @ Z2 + 5-10 minutes cooldown / Actual - 105 minutes @ Z2 + 20:00 cooldown (9.02 miles)
Another busy weekend, another early Saturday long run. I was awake extra early for some reason, and puttered around the house for a while before deciding it was finally late enough to get dressed. While I was laying in bed trying to fall back asleep I laid out my route, a loop along the rivers and the Strip, then after I gave up on sleep I got up and mapped it out, and to my delight found out it was pretty much nine miles exactly! At this point I'm not putting quite as many miles in with my long runs as I'd like, so once again I decided to modify and planned a route for a distance that I thought would be reasonable as long as I was taking it easy enough, even if it took me longer than I was originally planned to be out for.
It was a perfect morning, even if I did arrive at the trail parking lot about a half hour too early... it was still dark - I'd managed to forget that the sun comes up later and later these days, so I ended up sitting for a while in my car waiting for the sun since I was running solo and had left all my light-up stuff at home. I saw a few other people parked waiting for the same thing, so at least we were all antsy to get out there together. I'd also brought along the water bottle I got at the Great Race expo and filled it with water mixed with some Skratch, which I'd gotten a tube of in a subscription box (referral link!) I'm trying out (or trying to try out... for some reason they're having trouble charging my credit card but I haven't had time to call them and figure it out yet). I also brought along my trusty Honey Stinger chews because I wanted to make sure I didn't crash at all while I was out. The little pocket on my bottle is pretty miraculous... I managed to fit my key, my ID, some cash, my snacks, and even my phone (Nexus 6P so no dinky thing) and it still zipped!
Once the sun was sufficiently up I hopped out of the car and started down the trail. The sunrise was pretty, though not as stunning as the week prior, but that didn't seem to be discouraging the two different photographers I saw set up on the river bank! Despite it being homecoming (or so I was told), the stadium area was a lot less busy than the week prior as well. My heart rate was staying nice and low, it was cool and cloudy enough to be nice out, and overall this was a very smooth run. There's a tiny new section of trail parallel from 11th to 15th and I got to run that for the first time, which was fun. I stopped at the halfway point to eat a couple chews, and by mile 6 or so I was out of water. Good to know what my usage is like as a data point, if nothing else.
The weirdest thing was that by the time I got up to 40th Street and headed across the bridge, it looked like an entirely different morning than when I'd started! The temperature had actually dropped and it was a lot more humid, because a giant fog bank had rolled in! I couldn't see anything but a big gray void when I looked off the bridge in either direction, though I could hear rowers in the water down below. And I amused myself by yelling my head off as I wove up between the lanes of 28 and down to the Millvale Park, because the traffic was so loud there wasn't a chance of anyone hearing me. After a stressful week of work (and the promise of another one to follow), it was an exercise I thoroughly recommend to anyone who might need it.
 |
| There should be a skyline over there somewhere! |
My legs still felt pretty good, though definitely fatigued, as my watch clicked over to "Cool Down" mode and then proceeded to get confused about my distance as I approached the area where I'd parked. Not the first time I've noticed that, but I have a second screen that keeps the data correctly so I didn't worry about it too much since I'd planned the route out ahead of time anyway. Conveniently, I was finishing up about a half hour after the official SCRR run started, so I was able to take advantage of the facilities before hopping in my car and heading home.
Like the week previously, after grabbing a shower I pulled on a pair of PRO Compression socks for recovery, which was super helpful as I spent the rest of the day running around (and ate an awesome gyro, but everything tastes amazing after a long run...) and ended up well over 30k steps for the day!
 |
| We went to Rossi's for costume supplies - this is just one of a dozen old movie theaters turned into shops, but this one is definitely the messiest. Despite the chaos, we somehow found what we needed and a bunch of other awesome stuff, too! |
Weekly Total Time: 5:17:24 (up 16:10 from Week 9)
Weekly Total Distance: 23.21 (up .25 miles from Week 9 - a slower week overall)
Weight Lost: Down a pound and a quarter or so, though I had that party which definitely threw things off a bit! If I could just have a simple boring weekend I might be a bit closer to goal, but the scale's still moving the way I want it to and I'm not struggling for energy, so all good.
Next week: Week 11 will be more hills and hopefully adding another mile to my long run! Plus, I'm swapping my Monday run for a Sunday 5K - in costume!
Comments
Post a Comment