Sunday, March 14, 2021

Weekly Sweats: Cliffhanger!

 

This week's highlights: an estimated 30-ish miles, two strength workouts, and one cliffhanger.

I'm linking up with the Weekly Run Down, please head over to Kim and Deborah to check it out.

Confession of the week: I don't like Sunday races.  It's not a religious thing, it's a life philosophy/blogging thing.

From the life philosophy standpoint, I like the clean break of starting my weekend with the Big Event, whether it be a race or my long run and then spending the rest of the weekend resting and daydreaming about it before I go back to work on Monday.  If for some reason I'm not able to run on Saturday due to weather or life events, then I have Sunday as a backup to do my run.  Alcohol wise, running interferes greatly with my drinking, so it's nice to splurge on Saturday night if I want to.

From the blogging standpoint, Sunday mornings are my time to muse over the past week's fitness adventures and write it all out.  I like having the space of 24 hours since the event to reflect back on things.  I do much better if I think before I write.

All of which is to say that I am clicking the publish button ahead of today's race.  Sorry to leave you with a cliffhanger on how the Great Uphill 15k turned out, but there is no way that I'll be able to do it justice if I write about it immediately after the race.  I'll drop a wristie and a few thoughts on the insta sometime this afternoon.  If it's a great race it will get its own post sometime next week, and if I turns out like I expect it to, I'll say something about it in next week's post.

So here is how my fitness week went:

Monday: Weights and 4.5 miles.  I did the run at a deliberately slow and relaxed effort and had the same result as last week with my highest average heart rate of the week. I'm going to put a pause on the turtle efforts for a while.

Tuesday: 6.25 miles total.  I don't know how to say this besides Monday me and Tuesday me were not the same person.  My workout was from RunCoach.  1.25 miles warm up, 1 mile @ 10:08, 2 x half mile at 9:43, 1 mile @ 10:08, cool down.  I haven't run paces like that in a while, so I set my pace warnings for 10:30 for the miles and 10:00 for the halfs and tried not to remember what the paces were "supposed" to be in the moment.

Results: I ran 10:19 for the first mile, 9:39 pace for both half miles (seriously - I was unaware that I had even splits until after the workout), and then 10:13 for the 2nd mile.  More importantly I felt great for the rest of the day.  So that is none too shabby.

Wednesday: weights, no running.

Thursday: hey can I have Tuesday me back?  My plan was to do another speed workout from RunCoach, but I didn't sleep very well that night.  Without starting there was no way to know if it was going to be a case of "feel bad run good" or "trainwreck city", so I kicked off my planned workout.  I felt pretty good for my warm up and the beginning of my first interval.  And then I started struggling to hold the pace so I backed off and "just ran".  6.25 miles.

Friday: I had two orders of business to take care of on this run.  Thing one: crash Kim's pi party.  Thing two: get my Lucky's out of the box and put some miles on them before Sunday's race.  TBH, I don't think that it's necessary to "break in" running shoes in this day and age BUT even though they have shamrocks I'm not about to push my luck.

Saturday: I now have in my possession 4 safety pins, a race bib, and a sweatshirt.

Sunday: tune in next week to find out how the 15k turned out!

What's Next

I'll be cranking out the virtual Shamrock Shuffle next weekend.  I may not live in Chicago but I do have a 5 mile race in my town, so I can at least use a real race course.

Following up on last week's post, I'm getting closer to firing my "coach" a.k.a myself.  I simply don't know what I am doing and it's time to turn it over to someone who does. I won't do anything about this next week, but my goal is to contact the coach that I've picked out by the end of March.


29 comments:

  1. Can't wait to hear all about your race! Those shoes are the coolest. Ok I've been a coach for 9 years now and two speed workouts with a rest day in the middle? That gets a hard no from me. Glad you pulled back on that.

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    1. Yes, but in my defense the only way for me to know my limits is to test them.

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  2. I hope your race went really well can't wait to hear about it. Love the shoes! Super cute. I don't mind a Sunday race bc then I have a day to sleep in before race day. Right now, I will take any race day!

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  3. I absolute LOVE the design of those Brooks sneakers! I feel like they have the best colors/designs for their sneakers.

    I agree with you about Sunday races - I much prefer Saturday races.

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    1. They are killing it this year. I kind of want a 2nd pair of the Luckys.

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  4. Anxious to hear about your race. By the looks of those shoes, I can't imagine anything bad happening!!!

    I do like a Sunday morning race--Saturdays are too close to Friday. It's weird, I know...

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    1. I can see wanting to have some space between the work week and the race. For me, I just feel weird when I don't run on Saturdays.

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  5. I prefer Saturday races too! I like being able to rest and recover on Sundays. The only advantage is having Saturday to prepare for a Sunday race. I hope it went well!

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    1. It was a good race, though very hard. I'm 99% sure that I want to run it again (with proper training).

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  6. Looking forward to hearing about your race. Those shoes are gorgeous! I think most races are on Sundays around here. I think it’s easier to get permits to close roads on Sunday mornings You ran a lot ahead of your race!

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    1. You're probably right about the permits and definitely right that I did a bit too much this week. I think my mindset was that I didn't want to "miss out" on miles for a non-goal race.

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  7. Glad the race went well. I prefer a Saturday race for sure- then you can celebrate Saturday night! There are very few Saturday marathons though.

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    1. Yes to celebrating on Saturday and sadly yes that there aren't very many Saturday marathons.

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  8. Myself, I much prefer the Saturday races, too. It's a bit of a religion thing (but with the past COVID-dominant year, things have shifted with the online streaming thing). Those shoes!!! I wish they were "my model" because my feet are too nit-picky to go with anything else ((sigh)). Thanks so much for crashing the Pi party!! I'm glad you were a part of the celebration ;-)

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    1. It's all that I can do to stop myself from getting the tie dye pair...but I'm certain that I will get the Old Glories. Happy Birthday!

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  9. I was always a Thurs or Fri long run person due to those being my days off work, so having a long run on Saturday is a bit odd. It seems to make my weekend fly by! But I will miss it when the marathon is over. Getting together with my group is certainly routine now. I'm looking forward to your race recap!

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    1. A few times last summer I was able to do my long run on Friday and it was a game changer. It's been so nice to have a bit more control over my schedule with WFH.

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  10. I laughed. I like to do my long runs on Sat so I can drink on Sat night. Sometimes I have to run on Sunday...

    Awesome shoes. I'm wearing Topos now and they have only 3 bland colors.

    Can't wait to hear how the race went.

    Wasn't great to just be there?

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    1. Yes, just being there was everything! I want more!

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  11. I can see your point about Saturday races. I work on Saturdays (UGH) so Sundays are my only option! That's why I always do my long runs on Sunday.
    You were probably the envy of your race with those shoes! Looking forward to hearing all about it.

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    1. Point taken that if you have to work on the weekends that long run is a totally different ball game.

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  12. Oooh, I can't wait to see how firing yourself goes!

    Ideally, I would love to do my long runs on Friday, to clear my weekend for fun. But that's all in the perfect world.

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    1. Agree, in a perfect world if we didn't have pesky things like work getting in the way;-)

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  13. I much prefer Saturday races too. Looking forward to hearing about your race.

    Those Brooks shoes are so great!

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  14. The only two ways I run "feel bad run good" and "trainwreck city". hahaha!!

    we never ever race on a Saturday here, except one race I know of in the bible belt. Sundays in Europe are traditionally race/ long run day. Pretty much everywhere on the continent. Running groups meet up usually on Saturdays and of course there is parkrun as well, every Saturday.

    looking forward to hearing about your race - now to check if you already posted about it!

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  15. Love the shoes! I've also found that you don't need to break into new shoes anymore. They're ready to go! I like Saturday races because then I can rest before going to work on Sunday.

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  16. I hope your shoes bring you good luck this weekend. Just checked out your Insta to see how you did on Sunday's race. Yep, love those auto PR's! Can't wait to hear your thoughts on the race!

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  17. Also Team Saturday races. I like the "day off" after. Hope your race went well. Love those shoes and congrats on the amazing work Tuesday

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