Weekly Sweats: Inside Out Edition

Everything worked out this week, just not as I had planned.  Workouts that were planned for inside were done outside and outsides were done inside.  34 miles of running, 2 weight workouts, and I found out that I will soon be putting my money where my mouth is.

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

Monday: I got in a weight workout and then took advantage of the mild weather and early sunrise and got 4 miles outside!  I planned the route so that I would run past my house at approximately school bus o'clock so that I could get high 5's from the stepsons.  It was great to be outside, though after being stuck inside last week for 30 miles, my body was quite confused not to be on the treadmill.

Tuesday: 6 treadmill miles, 1 mile warm up, 6 x 5 minutes fast/2 minutes recover, cool down.  After just one easy run outside, my body was quite confused by being back on the treadmill.

Wednesday: off

Thursday: 6 treadmill miles.  I was in a mellow mood and didn't feel like doing speed, so it was a mostly easy run with some faster stuff willy-nilly as I felt like it.

Friday: weight workout and then 4 hilly miles outside!  I can't remember the last time I was outside for a hill workout, maybe September?  The incline slowed me down quite a bit so it was my first >12 minute mile paced run of the year but I felt strong so that's OK.

Saturday: I did not imagine for one minute that we would have a freeze out and a snowstorm, but oh yes we did.  Outside was unpleasant and icy and Sunday's forecast promised sunshine and a high of 60...the plan was to run 10 miles on Saturday, rest on Sunday, then 4 miles easy on Monday, so I did a switcheroo and for 4 easy treadmill miles on Saturday, 10 on Sunday and rest on Monday.  My body was super confused by the short easy run on Saturday.

Sunday: 10 miles outside!  No, let me say that again, 10 miles OUTSIDE IN SHORTS!!!  11:20 pace and if you're keeping score (I am), it's my fastest outside non-race 10 miler ever.  I included the "uphill in all directions" race course in my route, so I was super happy with my pace.  At times I pushed it and at times I just zoned out and ran.  I was very determined to have mile 10 be sub 11 minutes and oof it was not easy but booyah did it anyway.

About Those Weight Workouts
In the past I've had the experience of finding a great new weight workout on the internet, linking to it, and then finding out after a few times of doing it that it's not a good fit for my body.  What I'm saying is that I've learned to give something a full try out before I link to it, and now that I've been doing this workout for 6 weeks, I'm ready to share and endorse this as being something that has worked well for me:

What I like/what I've learned:

• As someone who doesn't have a lot of time for weights, a 24 minute video is perfect
• It feels like a good workout that challenges my muscles but doesn't leave me sore
• Um wow, I really rush through my reps, and this video taught me to slow down
• Shout out to the Cuban press, which I feel really helps with my "desk jockey" slumped posture

I think I'll continue with this routine for a few more weeks and then it will be time to move on to something else.  I'll definitely be checking out more of Grant's workouts.

My money where my mouth is moment
Zenaida posed the question on her Atlanta half recap: would you sign up for a race if it was a hilly course?  My thoughts are that hills are very hard for me, so it wouldn't be my first choice BUT I've been working on my weakness and it doesn't say much of me as a runner if I only run optimal courses in optimal conditions.  And then I learned that hey-o I have a hilly race in my near future.

I checked in on the website for the 15k that I'm running next weekend, and when I signed up the only thing I cared about was that it was a race in my area in March, there aren't a lot of those so I didn't really look at any other details.  Now that I was taking a closer look, I chuckled at the description of "a perfect training run for Boston" and as being a hilly course.  I kind of know the area where the race is, it's close to the half marathon that I ran last fall, which is as flat as a pancake, so sheesh what hills?  The race is close enough to home that I decided to find out and drove the course.  Ah, I was correct that it's close to the other race, but the terrain could not be more different.  The first few miles are noticeably downhill and starting at mile 5, what went down goes back up and very steeply.  There is just nothing that I run in my regular training that's like the back half of this course.  Well, I may not have known when I signed up for the race, but I know what I'm getting in to now.  This is the first time that I've gone to check out a race course beforehand and I'm very glad that I did.

It's a safe bet that this will be a positive split race.  My racing strategy will be to not look at my Garmin, to stay very relaxed in the early miles since gravity will be doing my work for me, and if I need to power walk in the last half of the race, so be it.  But even though the course will be hard, the more I think about it, the more I'm kind of looking forward to it.  It's all good.