Week in Review

75 Miles
Down Ladder on the Track
16 mile Long run
0 Days Off
8 Runs

After a quick turnaround after my stellar track workout on Tuesday, I decided to get my long run out of the way on Thursday morning.  An evening flight to California made it necessary to get this run out of the way before I left for the office.  My long run went by fairly quickly with Laurie and there really isn't much to report from it.  My legs weren't too tired from the track workout, but they didn't feel nearly as sprightly as they have in the past couple of weeks.  After the long run, I went to the Elizabeth Family Practice to get some bloodwork done that Dr. Price had called in for me.  Given that I hadn't taken my iron pills in a while and my poor performance at the NC 10k Champs, I already kind of knew what the results would be.  Sure enough, Dr. Price let me know that my Ferritin level was a 13. This is a bad number for most people, but it's an okay number for me.  So long as I keep my runs, workouts, and races within 10 seconds of my target pace, I don't go into oxygen debt.  Basically, I just need to race really smart and I can still run well.  Oh, and I need to take my iron pills, which I have been doing; I even brought my pills with me to California!

Speaking of California...the trip was amazing.  The weather there truly is unbelievably perfect and every time I go I wish I lived there--that is, until I hop into a car and sit on the freeway for two hours to go two miles.  My college roommate, teammate, bridesmaid, and all around best friend, Merry, flew from Tucson to hang out with my sister and me and we took advantage of our time together.  Every night we went to bed before 9PM, woke up before 7AM to get out the door for a run by 730AM, and hung out the rest of the day.  Our interests are so similar and it worked out perfectly for all parties because when we ran, it gave our gracious host and my sister a chance to relax and get things done around her place. We got the full southern California tour this time around, with a 24 hour stop in San Diego, a shopping excursion in Orange County, and a night in Silver Lake, near where some celebrities live.  We ate so much very delicious food that it saddened me to come back to Charlotte's dismal selection of healthy and local eats.

Week in Review

75 Miles
0 Days Off
8 Runs
10x1 Min Workout
16 miles w/ 4 miles @ 553 pace

This week surprisingly did not start off with sore legs.  In fact, since I ran so slow at my race on Saturday, my legs felt rather spritely, so I decided to jump into a workout on Tuesday.  I didn't write a blog this week for my minuter workout because there really wasn't much to report besides the facts.  I ran with Caleb and Laurie in the morning, with no focus on the splits or the paces, and finished feeling like I got in some good speed.  After more runs with fellow CRCers, my week culminated with a 16 mile long run with some tempo miles at goal half marathon pace thrown in.  Brad and Laurie accompanied me on the faster part, and we shot off a little too quick, but ran 4 miles in 23:35, gradually dropping the pace.  I pulled away from Brad in the end (he has a marathon next week), feeling the strongest at the finish.

As Meagan noted to me on phone earlier this week, we've got five weeks to get into good enough shape to run enough consecutive miles at this same pace to earn a PR.  I'm encouraged that things are headed in the right direction, and I'm crossing my fingers that the air in Duluth will be much dryer than the air here in Charlotte.  Summer is coming on full force as the humidity levels are beginning to finally reach what's considered normal.

16 Mile Long Run w/ Tempo

Goal:
5k Race Rumba on the Lumber

Actual:
No race
16 miles with 4 miles at 607 pace

So as of last night, I was supposed to do the Rumba on the Lumber 5k in Lumberton, NC.  In fact, we were even going to get a hotel for Friday night and stay over so that we could sleep in.  Well, by Thursday night, I had already nixed the idea of getting a hotel room because it was too much for my taste.  Then, by Friday night, I had nixed the idea of going to the race altogether because of two main things:  (1) the prize money was not $500 for the win as I thought and was instead $250 and (2) because of the reduced prize money, the cost / benefit analysis came out negative, when factoring in time lost to drive there.  So, we scrapped the plan to go to the race, and instead I made plans with Matt to run with a group at McMullen.

Now back to this morning, it was 8AM and I still had two hours before our run with Caleb and Danielle. I looked out the window, and it was snowing. No big deal.  An hour later, the snow flakes had tripled in size and were coming down in larger numbers.  I made a point on our Facebook thread that the wooden pathways at McMullen would be very slick for a tempo, and Caleb immediately made fun of me for being a weakling.  Once we got to McMullen though, Caleb realized that I had been right and we had to make a change to the tempo course to avoid the slick boards.

Going easy on the boards was just fine, just a little slick, but no big deal.  However, when picking up the pace, it definitely would have been difficult, so instead we did two loops around the church for a total of four miles before Caleb kept going straight on Pineville Matthews.  We hit splits of 6:15, 5:58, 6:15, 5:58 for each uphill/downhill mile. After the long run was over, I realized that we had averaged 7:05 pace for the easy portion of the run, which was definitely satisfying to see as that did not feel hard at all.  Unconsciously, I was pushing the pace so that I could warm my legs up which seemed to be absolutely freezing the entire time the snow was falling.

Although I scrapped a race, I was happier with the long run because it will prepare me for a solid half in the summer.

16 mile Long Run

Goal:
16 miles

Actual:
16 miles in 1:55 at 5:30AM

Woke up super early this morning to get in a long run before I embark on my trip to London today at 6PM.  Matt met me at 5:30 so we could add in some extra miles before the Dowd group.  My legs felt entirely sluggish and I had to ask Matt to hold back for me.  Once we met up with the Dowd crew, the pace naturally picked up and I found it somewhere within myself to not get dropped.  After I finished 9 miles with Dowd, I slowed the pace down considerably to get back into a comfortable groove of 7:45 pace.  My body is ready for a down week in London!