Chicago Week Three

8/8-8/14

Wow, I'm really bad about getting these weekly recaps posted in a timely manner! Gotta work on that. Anyway, this week did not go according to plan. I was scheduled to run 48 miles, but due to my work schedule, a prior engagement with my dad, and a race over the weekend, things had to be rearranged and it turned into an impromptu cut back week. I was nowhere near the total mileage for the week, but I still managed to fit in some quality workouts and had a great time racing at the Folsom Sprint Triathlon. I did learn some valuable lessons this week, too, after having a couple less-than-stellar runs. I'm not too worried about the cut back as I'm feeling much better this week, so I think my body may have needed to extra rest. Moving forward!

Monday
rest.

Tuesday

run: 5.1 mi, 9:18 avg pace.

Easy morning run with my pup before work! I'm glad my training plan still includes easier, shorter runs like these because sometimes they are just what I need mentally.

Wednesday
rest.
Back in June I got my dad tickets to a Giants game for Father's Day and this was the day! It was an absolutely perfect day in San Francisco, and we had a lot of fun, even though the Giants got killed. It was the first time for both of us attending a game at AT&T park and we were both impressed with the venue, sitting right on the Embarcadero with amazing views of the Bay! While we were looking around I couldn't help reminiscing about the SF Marathon last summer and I ran right past the stadium. That was such an incredible race!

Bay Bridge

Thursday

run: 17 mi, 9:30 avg pace.

Since I was racing a sprint triathlon over the weekend, I had to move my long run to earlier in the week. I decided on Thursday because I had the day off and liked the idea of actually relaxing after a long run (a novel idea, right?). I intended to get up fairly early still to get it out of the way and beat the heat. In actuality, I didn't get started til after 12pm. Whoops! I decided to break it up so it hopefully would go by faster, but in the end that seemed to backfire. I took my dog for the first 6 mile loop and felt pretty good, then dropped her off at home and set out to run the same loop backwards. This is when I started to drag, which is not a good sign when you have 10 more miles to go. It got hot real quick and mentally I was just struggling.

When I hit 11 miles I started a a final out-and-back section. By that time it was smack in the middle of the day and I felt like sh*t. I took a lot of breaks, but I made it home, utterly spent. In trying to keep with my new goal to be smarter about recovery, I immediately made a smoothie with some chocolate Hammer Recoverite that tasted absolutely delish after 2+ hours of running and sweating profusely. I also did an ice bath, which I haven't done in dayyyyssss. Later that day I actually felt pretty good, and I can only assume it's thanks to these two things! Note to self: don't attempt long runs in the middle of the day, and don't run the same stretch multiple times, you will hate yourself.

Friday
rest.

Saturday
swim: 0.5 mi, 17 min.
bike: 14 mi, avg 17.1 mph.
run: 3.1 mi, 8:24 avg pace.
Folsom Sprint Triathlon!

Sunday

run: 8 mi (5 tempo), 8:36 avg pace.

My tempo run somehow ended up at the very end of the week, the day after my sprint triathlon. After a looong day Saturday I wanted to sleep in a bit, so I decided to do it that evening after work instead. Big mistake. When I got off at 5pm, it was hot, I was tired, and the last thing I wanted to do was run, let alone try to run fast. My plan called for 10 miles with 5 at tempo pace, but that was quickly dropped to 8 miles. I'm not a fan of tempo runs with really long warm-ups and cool-downs, and 10 just seemed like too much, especially after a long day at work, so 8 it was.

Before I set out I decided to try out the interval setting on my Garmin so I punched in all my info and off I went. Usually I just use my current pace to gauge my tempo pace, but with the interval setting I couldn't find it! As a result I had no idea what pace I was running, and it wasn't until after that I realized I went waaaayyyy too fast. My goal pace was 8:30, and here's what I ended up with: 7:41, 7:48, 8:04, 8:06, 8:17. Fail. I was sweating buckets immediately and it felt like such an effort just to put one foot in front of the other. I took multiple breaks but finished the tempo miles feeling pretty wasted. I swung back by my house and picked up my pup for an easy 2 mile cool-down. Note to self: don't do tempos after work, the day after a race, or in temps over 90.

Totals:
swim -  0.5 miles
bike - 14 miles
run - 33.1 miles