Greetings everyone!  It has been another busy week (evidenced by light posting) but was a great training week for me.  It also just so happens to represent 1 month till race day and, as we have arrived at the end of March, it’s a perfect time to admire how great this training plan has been for my monthly mileage stats.  Let’s start there…

This Month…

This is by far most successful month since I started running.  I have never before broken 100 miles in a month and I definitely exceeded that here.  Another big change from the past is just the sheer number of days I have pounded the pavement.  When I first started running, I was maybe running 3 days a week.  This eventually crept up to 4 and sometimes 5.  This month, I only missed 8 days of training for the whole month.  While this is nothing in comparison to what comes next in my plan (which is 7 planned run days a week), I have come such a long way.

Just to further illustrate, here’s my monthly total so far for 2013:

Race Day is Approaching!

It is officially less than 1 month until my next big race, the Nike Women’s Half Marathon DC!  While I have been physically preparing my body to run the best race possible (and maybe even reach/break 1:50?), I have done very little to prepare for the trip overall.  We have our flights booked, a rental car reserved and I am of course registered for the race but all of the other details are fuzzy at best.  I think I will be playing catch up this month to be sure we have everything prepared!

I have been staying true to my plan and look forward to really testing my body and pushing it to its limits on race day.  I feel so much stronger and more in control when I run and I am anxious to see how that translates to race day.  I am certain that this race will be very different from my past races (as my first non-Disney race) but this also makes it exciting!  I need to continue to take my plan a day at a time and try not to get overwhelmed.  I have been working hard and will continue to do so for the next 3 hard-working weeks and I have faith that I will see dividends.

Week in Review

I stuck to my plan pretty perfectly this week!  I had to be a little bit adaptable but I got all my miles in and did not have to change any workout plans.  This was exciting!

 

Monday – I was a little bit stupid at the end of last week and did a 7 mile tempo run (4 miles actually at tempo) on Saturday followed by my normal 11 mile long run on Sunday.  As I mentioned in a previous post, I was having some tendonitis-type discomfort and had to take it a little bit easy.  Luckily, taking Monday off did the trick!

Tuesday – Back to the track for speed work and this time, we actually got to stay at the track!  I ran 8 x 400 and just about perfectly hit my split goal of 1:36 (read more here).

Wednesday – Our treadmill arrived!  I will have to follow up with a post about dealing with this treadmill delivery because it was horribly difficult.  Charles and I had to drag in the nearly 400 lbs box in from our porch when it wouldn’t fit in through the doorway.  We ended up having to use a steak knife (since we didn’t have a box cutter) to saw into the cardboard, open the box (we had to get it in and go to work after all) and bring it in piece by piece.

It was horrific.  The part above was the belt, motor, and arms and was by far the heaviest part.  We struggled and got all the components inside in time for work and finished the installation after we got home for the night.  I ran out of morning time to run and snuck in my run after I got home but before Charles did.  I did an easy 3 miles at an average of 8:47 pace.  It was nice to see a faster easy pace as compared to last week.  By the way, we already love the treadmill!  You can anticipate a future post on this!

Thursday – Thursday was another easy run with my running group after work.  It is always fun to get together with this great group and it’s much more interesting to chat with these folks than throw my headphones on for easy miles like this.  I kept a nice fast easy average pace of 8:41.

Friday – I was looking forward to, once again, attempting to get my tempo run in on the track.  Weather was fine, I was feeling energetic enough but when I arrived at the track, womp, womp…it was being used by another group that had hurdles and such up and I definitely did not want to get in their way.  Plus, it was getting to be pretty brutally hot from the sun so I decided to head home and give my brand spankin’ new treadmill a go.  It was a bit psychologically tough to stay strong on the tempo miles on the treadmill (I will admit, I was disappointed with myself but stopped for 30 seconds or so after mile 2 and again after mile 3.  I’m sure I could have powered through – I need to toughen up if I’m going to do my hard work on the treadmill some days since I find it so much more difficult to stay motivated to power through).  In any case, I used a 1% incline – .5 miles warm up at 6.0 mph, 4 miles at 7.7 mph (7:50 pace equivalent), and 1 mile cool down at 6.0 mph.

Saturday – I had to run to the apple store on Saturday morning since the lock button on my beautiful iPhone 5 stopped working (which apparently is a known issue – they were super nice and replaced it without any problem), so that meant an early run Saturday.  I took a nice relaxed 4 mile run on the trails through the woods at an average pace of 9:45.  I saw some fun nature including two otters playing in a pond and a little gator.

Sunday – If I thought the nature I spotted saturday was great, Sunday’s wildlife spotting put it to shame!  Towards the end of my long run, I came across this beautiful sight:

That would be a mommy otter (with a fish in her mouth) and her not-one-but-TWO baby otters running behind playing.  They ran out of the water, ran around for a few minutes on the banks, and then scurried off into the woods.  If you can’t tell, I love animals and spotting interesting little creatures is one of the many joys of running outside.  My 11 miles went well and I gained speed as I went.  I started feeling stiff but got into my rhythm within the first 5 miles or so and cruised on from there.  My average pace was 9:28.

On the Horizon

I have another 5k a week from Saturday so I look forward to mentally preparing for that and seeing how it goes!  I really love my training plan so far but hope to play catch up a bit this week.  More running means a little less time to take care of the rest of life unfortunately.  As I get used to the plan, however, I anticipate this getting easier and easier.  I will be sure not to neglect you all too much!  After all, my running adventures are must more fun when I can share them with you fine people!

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What’s your next race?  How are you preparing for it?