Training Week 6/10-6/16

I've had time to decompress from my Ragnar Relay experience.  It was tough.  It was fun.  It was an experience.  Definitely!

Monday: I had a personal training session with my old personal trainer Mike.  It was my first session in about 1.5 years.  And I'm weak.  I haven't been doing much (if any) core work or other strength training workouts.  He put me through the wringer...although the stuff he had me do seemed pretty basic.  I was shaking, sweating, wishing it were over...almost before it began!  Ha!  But I like going to him because he knows I push through even when I'm shaking (and groaning).  He won't let me quit and in fact, may even add a few reps on!  What??  And my abs were sore for 3 days after!  Like...don't make me laugh (or sneeze, or cough, or run) because...ouch!  It hurts!

Tuesday: I ran some hills with my friends.  I've been slacking on the hill work the past few months and I can definitely tell when I'm running anything with a slight incline!  Need to try to get back at these hills!  They made me tough and strong around January! We did walk a little. A friend was a little sore from P90X and I didn't mind the couple walk breaks since it was pretty hot!

I did 5.13 miles of hills with a 10:37 average pace.  A little slow but it's ok.

Wednesday:...REST!  LOVE!  Actually I was supposed to see Spirit of the Marathon II with Derek and some of our run friends.  There were storms and high winds.  It calmed down when I was on my way there but as I got there...there was a handwritten note plastered to the door saying the theater was closed due to weather.  So we went to the nearest restaurant/bar and a few others met us there for dinner/drinks and the Blackhawks game (wow...these games have been intense!).  While we had already ordered...someone said (at 7:30), they were playing the movie!  What??? Ugh.  Well, we couldn't really leave at that point and were over it so I'll have to see it when I can rent it or something.

Thursday:  I decided to try to incorporate some speed work back into my running plan.  Since it was my Thursday night run group and I know a few of my friends are my pace and want to do more speed work, I decided to open it up to them as well.  And I just did a short round of speed work to get back into it.  Plus it was a little on the warm side.  We did 1 mile w/u, 4 x 400 meters speed & recovery, 1 mile cool down.  It went pretty well and I felt great afterwards. 

1mi w/u & c/d: 9:50, 9:45
4x400 speed: 8:18, 8:17, 8:33, 8:28
4x400 recovery: 9:54, 9:49, 10:06, 10:26
Total 4 miles.  Average pace: 9:30 min/mile

Friday: ...let's get back to this tomorrow.  It was the Open Water Swim Clinic I participated in!  FUN FUN!  It was a 1.5 mile run (in wetsuits) and a swim clinic.

Saturday:  My schedule actually called for 11 miles but I was almost going to call it a 9-miler instead.  My legs were pretty tired from my Friday shenanigans (plus the rest of the week).  My marathon training group is following the schedule for Chicago and my marathon is 3 weeks earlier, so my mileage is higher than theirs!  Their schedule only called for 6 miles (opening training day).  What I decided to do to get more miles in was to run from home to the run (1.5 miles), run with the group (6 miles), run home (1.5 miles)...then tack on an extra mile and make it a nice 10 mile run.  I train with the 10 minute pace group.

Miles 1-5: 9:38, 10:01, 9:47, 10:08, 10:03
Miles 6-10: 9:54, 10:03, 10:04, 10:16, 10:00
Total Time: 1:40:00 (on the dot!!)
Average pace: 10:00 min/mile
(How did that even happen!  10:00 pace to the second! Haha)

Sunday:  I had plans to ride the bike with Derek, Becky and Doug.  We did 13 miles with Becky & Doug but I wanted a higher mileage so Derek and I hopped back on for a total of 21.58 miles.  We rode flat Old Plank Trail for the first 13 then when we went back out, hopped on the Schmuhl Hills for about 6 miles.  Love riding on Sunday morning after long Saturday runs!!  I'm going to keep this in my weekly rotation!  Even if I go alone.  (Although to be honest, I don't feel completely safe riding alone as I don't know much about bikes...but the trails usually have enough people on them that if I got into trouble, someone may be able to help me).

It was a full week and I'm pretty tired.  I've got personal training tonight but I'm taking tomorrow as a rest day.  It is SO NEEDED!