Surf City | Week 11

It just dawned on me that as of today, I'm just SEVEN weeks out from Surf City. Holy buh-jeezus. Where did the last two months ago? Didn't I just start training? Wasn't Wine and Dine last weekend? No? Damn.

Monday: Cross Train
Rest
Remember how last week I said I was going to experiment - try doing rest day on Sunday (the day after long runs), and kick off the week with a cross train sesh instead of sitting my butt on the couch? Well, long story short (really, there's no story) I had a terrible day, got worse when I walked out in the rain after work, picked up some dog food, got myself a fattie Chipotle burrito, and sat my happy ass on the couch anyway. Oh well. It was some good mental therapy and a good start to the week. Seriously.

Tuesday: 40 Minute Tempo
27:15 / 3.0 miles / 9:05 pace + 2.53 mi / 14:03
Finally got myself up in the morning! Morning time success - while I was scheduled for 40 minutes, I pushed hard and got 3 really stellar miles in. My quad starting getting tight somewhere in the middle of mile 2, so I didn't want to keep pushing it and then get worse, so I jumped on a bike for 15 minutes to keep moving and see if I could strech out some. Run mile splits at 9:19, 9:04, and 8:58. Holy cow. Felt amazing, and so glad this was the run to kick the week off. Let's hope it continues that way, hmmm?

Don't forget to link up for Track Tuesdays! Be sure you're joining me and Run DMT each Tuesday (or, you know, whichever day of the week you prefer)! Check out this week's post out here!

Wednesday: 8 miles
5.01 mi / 53:32 / 10:41 pace + Cycle 3.07 mi / 15:00
Wednesday was not a happy run day, despite Tuesday's best efforts to kick the week off well. Womp. I left my Garmin at home, and I don't like running on the track without it, just so I have some idea of what's going on, so I opted for the dreadmill. Now, my gym's mills are in the back of one of the Strength and Conditioning (re: weight) rooms, so it's hotter than all get-out. Not to mention I grabbed a regular tee so I was practically drowning. Was not feeling this. Hopped on the bike to finish off some time and try and make things better. Meh.

Thursday: 4 miles
4.0 miles / 38:11 / 9:32 pace
I usually make my Thursday morning runs outside, since they're short, and I can usually cram them in before racing to work, but still run in (mostly) daylight. I gave myself permission to sleep in, though, and relished those extra 20 minutes. Aaaaaah. I went back to the gym after work (with my Garmin in tow) and knocked out 4 really fabulous miles. Hating these up and down patterns! Ugh!

It was also Member Appreciation Day at my gym, so they offered a handful of free classes - I took advantage, considering most students are already out of town, so I figured it'd be slightly empty. After a few miles, grabbed my stuff, stretched and headed upstairs for a free yoga class. Admittedly, it was my first yoga class ever - yes, seriously! There were only a few of us, maybe ten, which surprised me (but again, finals are over and campus is empty). It was a restorative yoga class, so Bill focused on breathing and stretching - the stretching part was awesome, and felt good, but the class just moved soo slow. I admit it, I need to slow down from time to time, but I was hoping for/expecting a sweaty yoga hour... oh well. It was free. ;)

Every runner/yogi's woes, right?

Friday: Rest
Rest
It felt like the longest week ever and next week only be worse with no students around at all. The horror! After work, headed to Target and Walmart to see what kind of Christmas goodies I could find for the 5K on Sunday!

Saturday: 18 miles
5.36 / 54:39 / 10:11 pace

After last week's baller 17-miler, I had more confidence than ever that  I could handle this. My real challenge in mileage like this is where the hell to go! I live out on the east side of my town. I could easily run down the hill toward campus, run around the hill mid-section of town to eventually add up to enough miles and then run back home - all uphill. Who wants to do that after 15-ish miles? Insanity. Last week's loop system worked really well, so I gave it a go again.

The short version: Really sluggish, really blah until mile 3, even though paces were great, my legs just weren't in it. Mile 3 was good. Somewhere late in mile 3, the back side of my left knee started pinching a bit and I knew it'd be a struggle (knee and mentally) to get even close to 18. I didn't want to push it, since I had a 5K on Sunday afternoon, so I called it a day. I'm really disappointed that I wasn't able to do it, especially after last week's long run, but I need to remember the importance of listening to my body, especially at my mileages increase. My knee has done really well so far (I don't know the last time I felt any kind of pain), so I knew that if it was giving me any signs of ache, that I needed to drop back and listen. Sigh. Such is life.

Saturday afternoon, I ran a few errands with a friend from the dog park who I roped into coming along with me, before we met up for some dog park shenanigans:

Yep, photos with Santa! The local Tractor Supply was teaming up with one of the (many) local shelters to do photos with Santa. I wasn't going to do individual photos of Molly with Santa since we did them for her very first Christmas, but I got sucked into it. She wasn't a fan. We also managed to get a group photo of all 8 or 9 dogs (and 3 of the humans) with Santa. Still waiting on that photo, but you know I'll post it when I get it! I'm such a dog mom. (And proud of it, okay?)

Sunday: Cross-Train
Wiseman 5K / Bethlehem, GA
Meh, cross-training. I feel like I did that a lot this week when the runs weren't up to par. Sunday afternoon, though, I met up with another running friend, Jennifer, who I met at last year's Madison Rush to Christmas 8K and who I did the Color Run with this year. We haven't run together since the Color Run, so kept in touch about Christmas races and we finally decided on this one.

Preview of the Christmas 5K fun! Who doesn't love dressing up?

 Race recap to follow here shortly!

In short, reasons why this race was awesome. See street names, let alone the name of the town!

Overall, a fairly lackluster week for me. Such is life, right? Here comes the big challenging - heading into the holidays this weekend (flying to Vegas on Friday!) and facing the challenging of rolling out of bed and making it count. Let's do this! 

Total Week Run Miles: 20.48

Total XT Miles: 5.6 cycle + yoga 
Total Week Miles: 26.08

How did your training go this week?