Week 6 of Half Marathon Training (1.14-1.20)

Previous Summaries

Planned Mileage: 3, 4, 3, 10 (for a total of 20 miles)

Monday: My legs felt pretty fatigued from my busy weekend. Jen called me and wanted to know if I wanted to run while she walked and we talked on the phone. I was up for that so we did it. I was even only halfway through my lunch when she called but she had to hurry to finish her walk before dark. She walked her neighborhood loop and I ran 4 miles. It made the run go by so quickly. It felt great. I did run a little slower because of being fatigued and being on the phone. We could mostly hear each other. Every now and then it was a little tough. But man was it fun. Too bad she didn't leave work earlier so I could have done my entire long run with her on the phone. Because now I still haven't done my long run from almost any of the weeks.

It's amazing how it was 49 degrees 2 days in a row that I went running and one day I was freezing and the other day I had to take off my long sleeve shirt and I was still warm. I also wore pants the day I was cold. It all had to do with the sun but still it is tricky.

Later in the day I did a core workout, foam roller, and stretched.

Tuesday: I took a rest day. I was going to go to Body Pump but I spent a few extra minutes at the mall.

Wednesday, 1/16: I did a 5 mile tempo run with the same route as last week. Since I missed my goal of 9:04 last week, I made that my goal again even though the train plan suggests 9:02. It was challenging but wasn't that bad at all. I can't believe I survived it so well and blew my goal out of the water. 

Thursday: Dave and I went for a 2 mile walk plus walked all around Target.

Friday:  I ran with Hilary at 4. We did a 4 mile loop near my apartment. Last week we ran near her so this week we ran near me since we weren't running far we didn't want to drive somewhere to run. I felt like I was running so much faster than we were. The last half involved more crossing of streets and paying attention to cars always slows me down.  We were fairly consistent. We started out a bit too fast but I tried to hold back so we didn't kill ourselves on the first mile like we usually do. 

After dinner, I ran to the gym, lifted weights for my arms (40 minutes), and ran home. It is quite a short distance to and from the gym but I thought I'd run rather than walk or drive. I have not driven yet and don't plan to. I ran holding my phone, wallet, and lock. That was a little challenging. At the end of my weight lifting workout, I did the assisted pullups. I did 2 sets of 8 at 66 lbs assistance and did my 3rd set at 60 lbs assistance. Last time I did 72 lbs. I could have probably gone down a little too. I better push myself instead of dogging it if I ever want to get to the point of doing a real pullup someday.

Saturday: I accidentally took a rest day. I even fell asleep at 8pm and slept the night. I wasn't even sick or anything. I was sore from my weight lifting on Friday.

Sunday:  I went for a long run with Hilary. I thought we'd do 7-8 miles. She thought she'd do 5 so she planned to turn around early. Well she didn't and we both did 8.6 miles. It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. 

We were doing 4:1 run:walk intervals. They are usually easier than straight running but we were flying right along. Hilary said she was struggling the second half. It was both of our first long run since early November but lately I've been getting more miles in with a few shorter runs. She only ran twice since before Christmas. 

I also ate breakfast for the first time ever before a run. I had 2 eggs and 2 pieces of toast. I was up since 6:30 and ate from 9-9:30 and then we ran at 10:30. I thought we'd run between 10 and 10:30 and figured that was an OK goal. I still can't believe how fast we ran. Maybe it was that breakfast. I should probably try it again. 

Our last 2 long runs were Nov 4 (8.61 miles at 10:23 pace) and Nov 11 (10.01 miles at 10:06 pace). My last 8mile+ run was August 24 where I ran 8.11 miles and I was extremely shocked at how fast I ran that (8:53 pace). I was 125.9 lb back in August, in November I was 134 and 136.9. Today I was 137.1 so August should have been faster because the more weight I put on the harder it is to run.  On August 24, I ran continuously and the 3 more recent times, I did run walk.

You can see my BodyMedia fit data. You can kind of tell where each walk interval was, but you can definitely see the 5 times we stopped at water fountains. We also stopped for much longer on 2 of them. (oops)

Total Running Mileage: 22.77 mi (I actually had to limit running again because I would have gotten way too many miles and I still increased by more than 10% each of the last 4 weeks.)
Total Biking Mileage: 0 mi
Total other things: 1 walk,  1 foam roller, 2 core workouts, weights.

Summary: I ended up with 2 rest days this week. I would have preferred just 1.  I was extremely happy with 2 of my runs this week. I wish I would have lifted weights more.