Week 11: One Month In, 10 Weeks Away

Another week has flown by in my running adventure; chock-full of heavy hearts, new perspectives, and training challenges and successes. How has it only been seven days since my last post? Well, let's get started with a training recap:

SUNDAY 3/9

13 miles at 8:09 pace

MONDAY 3/10

3 m easy

Gym lifting

TUESDAY 3/11

Unintentional rest day

Gym lifting

WEDNESDAY 3/12

6 m tempo

Run Club

Gym lifting

THURSDAY 3/13

4 x 800 (Yasso 800s) + 2.5 miles

Track Workout

FRIDAY 3/14 - Pi Day!

9 mile tempo

SATURDAY 3/15

4 m easy

So, if all goes according to plan, I'll be hitting just below 40 miles this week, which is right on target 10 weeks out from the Mountains 2 Beach Marathon. My hip flexor / upper quad is dying a little bit after a weird stutter-step at Run Club on Wednesday, so I might skip my run and go to yoga instead tonight (correction: I decided to run 9 miles at 7:30 pace because the weather was so nice. AND, my hip flexor / upper quad felt way better after). Bodies are complicated things (correction: no pain, no gain).

Sunday 3/9: 13 miles up Grizzly Peak + around Lake Temescal

Check out those sweet shoes! Neon pink is not usually my jive, but the kind folks at Skechers Performance really know how to make a pair of shoes (and I secretly like the glaring attention of the color!). These ultra light-weight pretties have provided a really smooth ride thus far. I've probably logged roughly 40 miles on them and I would definitely purchase a pair after these. I can't wait to race Ragnar SoCal 2014 in them on April 4-5th! Our crazy team, afterNUUN run, has 12 of us taking on the 198 mile race from Huntington Beach to San Diego. I'll be running the 5th, 17th, and 29th legs of the race. So wildly stoked!

Look at all those sponsors! We're so grateful!

In addition to breaking in the GOrun3's, I finally added a new pair of light-weight minimalist shoes to my existing rotation: enter the New Balance rc1400's. I took a risk on these, since I ordered them without trying them on, but after one run I'm excited for what's ahead. I'll likely be adding another pair to the mini-arsenal too. It's time to start increasing the rotation to aid in reducing injury.

New Balance rc1400's & an awkward post-track selfie

Just to clarify, my mirror isn't up high enough on the wall for me to take anything but these mildly ridiculous partial-squat photos. They're embarrassing, but they are progress. My 4 x 800m workout with full rest in between was a fun throw-back to high school speed workouts, albeit sort of odd with other people at the track and me doing intervals alone. My splits were really consistent, which was the main goal, but running 3:03 800s is still a little silly. My fast-twitch muscles are basically non-existent, but I'm thrilled to get out there, set goals, and bounce around the track every 2 weeks for some 'speed' work. The basic plan is to alternate between hills intervals and track intervals each week. The likelihood of post-interval selfie photos is high and I'm going to apologize right now for those.

My unexpected rest day on Tuesday was quite the adventure. And by 'adventure,' I mean 'terrible 2-hour delays on Bart followed by people being irrationally inappropriate and scary and me panicking about it.' I'm so thankful to have such supportive and caring friends to pick up my pieces. It doesn't happen often, but even a fiercely independent human, engrossed in an individualist sport like endurance running, needs to have pillars from which to build. And after this rough week, filled with several sets of funeral arrangements and more heavy-hearted news, I am grateful, appreciative, and full of love for those I'm lucky enough to lean on.


Week 10, bring it on.