Training Week 324
Highlight of the Week: Seeing a beautiful sunset / students telling me they enjoyed fitness boxing / a strong finish to 2015 and a strong start to 2016!
Monday | December 28, 2015: 15 m ride
Indoor Bike Time: 1:03:02, Pace: 14.3 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | December 29, 2015: 5 m run + 5 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 28°/29°, Time: 41:34, Pace: 8:18 avg, Difficulty: easy then medium, Felt: good
Loc: hood, Temp: 28°/28°, Time: 41:59, Pace: 8:24 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Wednesday | December 30, 2015: teaching strength class + 7 m run
Strength: medicine balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: hood, Temp: 28°/28°, Time: 1:01:24, Pace: 8:46 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt:good, getting used to the inclines
Thursday | December 31, 2015: 5 m run
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee loop, Temp: 25°/25°, Time: 43:43, Pace: 8:44 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Friday | January 1, 2016: 14 m run + 20 mins strength + 7 m ride
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee Loop, Temp: 23°/24°, Time: 2:10:56, Pace: 9:21, Difficulty: easy, Felt: fantastic
Indoor Ride Time: 28:40, Pace: 14.7 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Saturday | January 2, 2016: 6 m run + teaching fitness boxing
Loc: Gages Lake Loop, Temp: 20°/20°, Time: 53:45, Pace: 8:58 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but a bit tired (leg muscles)
Strength: body weight w/hand resistance bands and boxing, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Sunday | January 3, 2016: 10 m run (incl. 10×1:00)
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee Loop, Temp: 28°/28°, Time: 1:31:15, Pace: 9:07 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good, challenged on the inclines
Notes:
- Someone yelled at me “You go girl!” when I ran by them during my Wednesday run. It totally made my run! And, I saw another runner in our rental neighborhood for the first time on Wednesday!
- I’m pleased that our rental neighborhood has some inclines in it. My old neighborhood did too, and regularly running those inclines makes real hills a bit less daunting for me. But gah, they’re hard at the end of a speed session!
- It was nice to have a holiday the last two Fridays, and to not have to wake up at 4:00 am to teach the 5:00 am strength class (I taught them on Wednesday the last two weeks instead). It’s rare I get to sleep in on a Friday!
- My phone decided it had enough of the cold during Saturday’s run and shut down on me (ironically, while I was taking a photo of the sun – which I hadn’t seen during a run in a long time). Oops. I forgot that in previous winters, I put it inside a glove, in my jacket pocket. I did that on Sunday’s run – I don’t feel comfortable running without a functioning phone.
- I’ve thought about this a few times since the marathon but keep forgetting to note it – when I did my long training runs, I turned off the pace view on my watch and used the screen showing overall time only. I did this so that I would run slower and not worry about pace (until I was almost home and then pick up the pace a bit). During the race however, I had pace showing, because I wanted to stay on track for a sub 4:00, and it felt a bit burdensome to look at my watch so much. During training, I did do middle distance at pace training runs showing pace on the watch, but 26.2 miles of it felt like so much longer. Because it was. It all turned out okay, and I became decent at running even-ish splits during training, I just need to find the right balance between running on feel and looking at my watch.
- December recap time! In December I ran 164.4 miles and cycled 55.5 miles. I taught 7 strength classes, 3 fitness boxing classes, and 1 indoor cycling class. On to 2016!
Themocracy
I’m jealous of how clear the sidewalks are where you run! They do a terrible job plowing the side walks near me! In terms of the watch, on long runs I usually do a run/walk ratio so I keep the watch on my run/walk timer instead of my pace. I’ve tried to get focus more on running by effort this year. The only time I really check my watch frequently now is at the track
The pictures in the post are from a paved trail that is partially plowed. I am running in the streets now because the sidewalks are a mess 🙂
Have you always done a run/walk method for long runs? I did that for a few in the summer when it was nasty humid out and it helped big time!
I started doing it after my third marathon (I think) and it made such a difference. It broke up long runs mentally and I felt like I recovered so much faster!
Great month again 🙂 Your hilly chart look familiar, we have some up and downs in my neighborhood and I do think it is good for you 🙂
I have been fan of not looking at the Garmin lately, I seem to go faster, I think before I saw it and thought I should be tired lol and would slow down…
I need to slow down for my longer runs, I am still nervous about trying to tackle training again. I think I will run/walk longer runs to keep the impact lighter, but I go back and forth daily lol
Nice highlight! It is great to know you pump other people up 🙂
Thanks! It’s nice to live somewhere with some inclines, right?
I noticed I sometimes run faster in the dark, and I think it’s because I can’t see my watch! I don’t really pay attention to it that much anymore though, and I often turn off the pace screen.
Yes! Slow down for the LR. DON’T RACE THE LONG RUN. LOL, I always telling people that 🙂
You do inclines after speed sessions? You’re better than me. I’d finish with speed and be done.
No, sorry to be confusing – I did my speed session on a route with inclines 🙂
You have been doing some fast running lately, chica! Look at all those sub-9:00 averages!
I am a big advocate of not looking at my watch when I run. I actually look at it most during easy runs to make sure I’m going SLOW enough but for harder efforts I always run by feel and then analyze the splits later, or maybe look at it once or twice to make sure I’m on track (I have my Garmin set to display average pace, not instant). I can always adjust later, but looking at my watch all the time and trying to adjust my pace during a run just really throws me, and hampers my body’s ability to learn to run the pace naturally. Yes, 26.2 miles will feel like a long time to hold that pace, but it’s always going to feel that way (unless your time goal is way below your potential) because, well, marathons are hard. I know those mid week pace runs don’t seem like much since they’re only 1/3rd of the distance but if you keep doing them week after week, it really does add up and help you on race day. Take it from another runner who achieved her marathon time goal this year 😉
Thanks 🙂 I am surprised when I see those paces. I am lucky it’s not too slick or snowy to still run at a decent (for me) pace!
Yeah, a lot of runs I turn off pace and just have the screen on overall time so I can focus on my effort. I don’t want to run too fast just to hit some number that doesn’t matter and potentially get hurt!
The pace didn’t feel challenging at the marathon until the last 10k. It was just annoying to look at my watch so much. Ha!