Weekly Sweats: Progress Edition

This week's recap is the story of 29.25 miles and some solid optimism about half marathon #3.  I had a great week and I really feel like I've made progress with my fitness.  I don't want to be all "I got this" for half marathon #3 in two weeks, but...I got this.


I'm linking up with the Weekly Run Down, please head over to Kim and Deborah to check it out.  Special shout out to everyone running the Columbus marathon today!
 
Monday: 3 treadmill miles.  I've been struggling with the treadmill recently and this workout was no exception.

Tuesday: 5 treadmill miles, I took it easy and all of a sudden I got my treadmill mojo back.  Weights at lunch.

Wednesday: 3.25 outside miles!  After getting an outside weekday run last week, I was determined to do it again this week. Normally I workout first thing, finishing up around the time my stepsons leave for school in the morning.  We have a nice family ritual where we all walk to the bus stop down the street.  The stepsons are far past the age where they need to be escorted to their bus, but the adults and stepdog like the outing and the kids don't mind us tagging along.

It was raining.  Stepdog is fairly athletic and loves going outside, and we can only count a handful of times that the weather's been so bad that she's tapped out of a walk.  This morning was one of them.  She made it one house down the street and firmly turned around and let my husband know she was done.  They headed to the house, the steps got on their bus, and I started my run as planned.  I love running in light to moderate rain, but this was a bit much.  It was coming down hard and the wind was biting.  I usually end my runs at the end of our street and walk the block as a cool down, but I knew that once I stopped running it would be cold, so that's why I ended up with the extra quarter mile.  Even with the weather drama I loved this run and I felt pretty tough for going out when stepdog wouldn't.  The late run made for a hectic hustle to get to work, so I can't do the outside weekday runs everyday but I'm going to continue doing them once a week until it gets icy.

Thursday: 5 treadmill miles.  1 mile warm up, then a ladder of 1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1 minutes fast/2 minutes recover.  This was a good one and flew by in a heartbeat.

Friday: 3 treadmill miles, hill workout.  I can definitely feel progress since last week.  Weights at lunch.

Saturday: outside for 10!  I cannot say enough about how much easier it is to run in cooler weather.  There's no time pressure to get outside before it gets too hot and I have so much more energy to put into the run.  I did 4 miles warm up, 10x 0.1 mi fast/0.1 mi slow, 2 mi easy, and another 10x fast/slow.

Cool down walk with stepdog afterwards and then I spent the rest of the day on the couch.

Sunday: off, apart from an extra walk with stepdog.

In other fitness news, I got my credit card out and registered up for some more races.  On the docket for the rest of the year:

• Turkey Trot 5k
• A Christmas themed 10k in early December
• A 5 miler on Christmas Eve
• A 5k on New Year's Eve

For the 5k's, the goal is sub 30 - I don't know if I can, but you better believe that I will be trying (my PR is 30:41).  The 10k goal is a PR, which is my one unmet running goal of the year (missed it by 4 seconds earlier this year).