Holy crap, I’m halfway there!

I’ve yet to decide if that is reassuring or reason enough for a panic attack.  It could go either way, it just depends on the day.  😝

After week 8’s less than stellar showing I was really hoping for a better week.  What I got was a learning week.   And an injury scare.   Then I finished it all up with a tough 10K.

Monday- 5 miles. I love seeing easy miles on the plan.  However, I ran these too fast.  I was about a minute under pace for the run.  While it felt pretty good at the time, I wonder if this added to the issues that popped up later in the week.   I also ran these miles in my Pureflow’s.  I was thinking of wearing them for my race so I wanted put a few miles on them since I hadn’t worn them since the SLO half.   My toes still feel squished but other that I remembered why I loved those shoes.

Tuesday- 1.25 mile w/u, 6 x 800, 1.25 mile c/d.  Since I missed week 8’s speed workout due to a head cold, I decided to do it this week instead of jumping to the 1K repeats.    800’s are hard.   The 600’s a few weeks ago had felt pretty comfortable, these did not, these were hard.    I also had technical difficulties of the hilarious kind.   I’ve been using the workout feature on my Garmin; I create the workout online and push it to my watch so I don’t have to try and track the intervals on my own.  So I programmed in what I thought were 6 intervals of 800 with 400 meter recoveries.   I felt like my first 400 m recovery was taking forever.   I kept checking my watch but it kept saying 399.9.  What?  Come to realize that I had programmed my recovery at 400 MILES not meters.  Oops!!    So from then I just tried to ballpark when to hit the lap button to end each recovery.     I underestimated each time, oops.    My recoveries ended up being around .15.

My goal time for each 800 was 4:30-4:42.  Actual times were-  4:28, 4:23, 6:38, 4:26, 4:24, 4:23.  So yeah that 3rd 800?  I had tried to see if I could fix the 400 mile recovery but not only failed, I had also started the run interval but not realized it.   I think it would have been in the line with other ones though.

Wednesday- Rest  My legs were feeling super sore.   I wore compression socks to work and changed from boots to flats.  That might not have been the best idea.  I also had an appointment with my gastroenterologist and I have a shiny new elimination diet to start this week.   During marathon training…yay?      Also pizza night was a giant fail.  Boo.

Thursday- 8 easy miles— 3.75 miles  With a 10K race on Saturday, the plan was to swap my easy run and my tempo.   My training plan advised against this as I was supposed to step up to 8 tempo miles this week but I really like this race.   I still felt sore and tired so I headed to the river path to get in an easy 8.  Ha!   My legs hurt from the get go.   My shins hurt, my ankles hurt, my arches felt off and my knees started to ache.    I gave it 2 miles to see if it was all in my head and if I was going to be able to run it out.  No dice.  I called it at 2 and hobble ran/walked back to the car.   It hurt.   I went home and stretched, rolled and put on compression socks again.   And tried really hard not to freak out.  Thank you to Heather and Ashley for putting up with all of my whining text messages.  😂

Friday- Rest  My legs were still super sore.   I was beginning to question Saturday’s 10K.

Saturday- Bands on the Run 10K  Could have gone better but I made it through it.  More on that next post though.  Why do beach races make my calves so sore?

Sunday- 15 miles- Rest  My alarm was set for an early run but when it went off, I said no.  I had started to feel the beginning of a headache Saturday night and tried to fight it off by sleeping with an ice pack.  No luck, Sunday morning it was a full on migraine.  I shut off the alarm and slept more hoping it would ease up and I could get some miles run in the afternoon.  Unfortunately, all the afternoon saw was a 2 hour long nap.   My head hurt so bad, I didn’t even complete this post in time to go up on Monday.    Once again, I slept with an ice pack that night.

Hmmm, well 4 days is better than week 8 right?  Unfortunately my overall mileage still hovered in the low 20’s.  The leg pain kind of freaked me out and I am making an adjustment to my training plan going forward.  I am swapping my Monday easy run for Wednesday’s rest day.   I knew my training plan was intense for a Slacker like me, even with dropping Friday’s run from the get go.   So now let’s see how I feel with 3 days in a row instead of 4.  Cumulative fatigue is one thing, I am freaking tired.    Plus, who knows how these dietary changes are going to go over?  Fingers crossed!   Hopefully, my legs will get me through the week. 😀

How was your week?

How many days can you comfortably run a row?

Who else raced this weekend?