Wine & Dine: Week 9

Week 9 is done... and lord, October almost is too! Seriously cannot believe that my birthday was nearly a month ago, Halloween is next week (not that I'm doing anything), my cousin gets married in two weeks, and Wine and Dine is just three weeks away! Wherrreeee does time go? Sheesh.

I haven't talked much about it before, especially since it overlaps this training plan so much,  but I'm officially into my full marathon training plan. The calendar started on October 1st, actually (my birthday!), but I've been trying to break it up into  parts (maybe to not make it seem so daunting?), and of course, focused on training for Wine and Dine. I'm running W&D for fun (it's Disney after all) but want to know that I can still get to work when it counts. Given my performance these last two halfs (ATL 13.1 and Athens Half this morning), I know I'm making progress and it feels awesome. With that, I bring you Week 9.

Monday - 
Rest
I'm really happy I moved Mondays to be rest days these last few weeks. Mondays are rough anyway and it's a good feeling to start a rough day with a few extra minutes of sleep. Brilliant decision on my behalf, mmhmmm.

Tuesday - 
Rest
Didn't really want to rest but didn't really want to run either. Settled for a rest day, took it easy and geared up (mostly mentally) for getting back to work on Wednesday. After this mental flop of a day, I was really getting in my own head and wondering what I was doing with all these races lately. Struggled, to say the least! Took it easy, let it go and got ready to tackle the week ahead.

Wednesday -
3.05 miles /28:31 / 9:20 pace
Slowly pulled myself out of bed for this one -- my only thought was that winter training is going to be really tough if I can't pull it together. Realized, though, that I had to at least get out there that morning and see what I could make of it. Beautiful (chilly!) morning and really felt it - went running in a hoodie for the first time already. Whew! Happy I got out and made this one happen and obviously pretty happy with my pace overall. Tempo Wednesday (instead of Tuesday, per normal) success!

Also realizing the need to find some new routes around town -- I have my usual routes (especially for morning runs) but it's starting to wear on the desire to get out and get those few miles in. Uggggh.

Safety first -- early morning reflective vest!

Thursday - 
5.39 miles / 52:36 / 9:45 pace
Set out on this run after work - something normally I wouldn't do for a 5-miler, but I was bound and determined to get in a good run and a decently log one at that! Took me a little bit to settle in, but really found my stride about 2.5 miles in and ran with it (literally!) as long as I could. My only goal was to get to 5 miles and under 50 minutes, just to show I can do a decent long run at under a 10-minute pace (trying to break that barrier!). Hit 50 at 48:xx! Pretty stoked finishing this run up and feeling a little bit better about the half coming up on Sunday.

Happy runner! Finally!

Friday -
2.34 miles / 21:57 / 9:22 pace
Got up to do this before work again and put a last few miles on the clock before the half. Wanted to make it decently shortly, but enough to get some work done! Glad I started my Friday this way -- it's always a great start to the day when you can sweat it out! Love. Feeling a lot better about this race.

Saturday - Rest
Rest
Saturday was the much needed rest day. Well, maybe not super needed, as I really was on a high from the previous 3 days but I knew I didn't want to push it going into the race on Sunday. Ran a few errands, headed to packet pick up and geared myself up (again, mostly mentally) for the fact that I'd be running a half the next morning! Admittedly, a lot of the 'gearing up' was realizing that I wasn't getting up at 3-4 am to go drive into Atlanta for a race - exciting! My alarm didn't go off until 5:45. What a change! I'll take it. Spent the evening on the couch, watched the tail end of a few football games and was in bed before 9. Lovely, love evening!

Such a gorgeous morning -- lucky to have had this on Sunday too for the race!

Sunday - Athens Half Marathon
13.1 miles - Second half marathon in two weeks! 
I felt crazy for even thinking that I could do two in two weeks. Wasn't sure I wanted to push myself for a goal, considering the ATL 13.1 was just supposed to be easy and for fun and I went and PRed. I had originally planned to then run Athens for seriousness. What happened? (Well, if you follow me on Facebook or Twitter or Daily Mile, you know the answer...) ... but you can check out the race report to read  more about it!

Happy last full week of October! Did you race this weekend? How'd it go?