Marathon Monday: 3/26

Another weekend over, a new week beginning.  Last week went really fast for me but I am pretty sure the weekend went even faster… now it’s back to reality… but hopefully this week goes equally fast and we will be back at Friday again!  I miss the days when it was not a constant countdown until Friday… but now I work full time and that is what my life has become.  Well, that and marathon training!  So also a countdown until my next run  After last weekend and the super successful 10k attempt, I was on the fence about even running this past week but by Monday morning, I was ready to give running a second chance and ended up having a pretty good training week!  Here’s what I ran last week…

Wednesday 3/21: 12×400 Speed Workout.  I didn’t want to do this on Monday so I ended up switching it to Wednesday.  I thought I would like the speed workouts more by this point but I’m back to not really being the hugest fan.  When I woke up Wednesday, I was not 100% into doing this run but figured I would start out and if I wanted to just call it, or just end up running a slower pace I could do that but in the end, ended up keeping fine paces even if my heart was not 100% in it.

This is probably the most splits I’ve ever had during a run but it’s kind of cool looking!  I hit the lap button on my watch every speed up and slow down to see what paces I was keeping.  The 12×400 means sprint for 400m, 12 times!  I added a recovery 200m in between each 400m sprint.  I ended up doing the whole thing on the track at the school by my house so I didn’t look at my watch, ever, so hence the not really exactly 400/200 splits:

Looking at this, it looks like I was actually pretty darn close to 400/200!  And I ended up finishing this 5.75 miles with an 8:49 average with a few walking 200m’s so I actually ended up running kind of fast!

Saturday 3/24 – 18 miles.  This was my second 18 miler and I was kind of surprised by the fact that it did get a bit “easier!” (I need to find another word than easy… it’s not easy, just relative to feeling like death, it feels easy )  On my last 18 miler, I really struggled the last 3 miles.  On this 18 miler, I only really struggled the last 1 mile which seems like an improvement, no?  Not sure if it was the running with Sister that helped or just the fact that this was not the first time that helped.  And I think if I would have had more water and less of a side ache, this would have went better as well.  It’s kind of funny that my first 18 miler took me 2:56:21 and this one took me 2:56:22.  Apparently, I am rather consistent… I’ll be interested to see if I can keep this pace up for 26.2.  Probably not for this marathon, but maybe eventually!  I guess we shall see when I tackle my first 20 miler.  Not gonna lie, I am a wee bit freaked out my 2-0!

Monday 3/26 – 5 miles tempo.  I think I am officially switching my “tempo” runs to Monday.  I just can’t wrap my head around “speed” runs on a Monday morning… that just seems painful.  That way if my “tempo” is not that fast, oh well, at least I finished some more miles, right?  This mornings run was a return to winter running and I did not really like it… back to pants, long sleeves, etc.  Boo  When I left, the clock said 32 degrees.  Ouch.  And it was windy.  Fun.  I ended up finishing 6 miles in about 56 minutes.  I did a 800 meter warm up and then attempted to pick up my pace a bit.  It kind of happened, but not super much

Looking back, this week ended up going a lot better than expected.  Just seems to be more proof that whatever my expectations are, the opposite occurs :S  Why is that?  I guess probably just because I break under pressure  And with no pressure, I can just go out and RUN!

And a little Monday morning Hunger Games running humor for ya that has nothing to do with the rest of this post!

Happy Monday?!

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