WHEW, what a week! There was a lot of tough work, but my spirits are super high. There are several small places where I can see opportunities to improve — and totally achievable, at that! — that it’s given me the gumption to keep working at this Big Goal. I even had a PR on my 10-mile race this week, which is always an enjoyable element in fueling motivation.

But here we go: Less than a month to race day!

WEEK AT A GLANCE:

• Two easy runs
• One speed workout (SPRINTS!)
• One long run — coinciding with RACE DAY!
• One core + one strength workout

MONDAY
Rest day, and my biweekly call with my coach. I really needed a confidence boost, after too much negative self-talk. Receiving feedback and mental tips is one of the many amazing reasons to have a coach. She really helps me reign in and release this future-focused, all-or-nothing thinking. My old carry-over mantra from derby — “I can do anything for two minutes!” — has been revised to “I can do this right now.”

TUESDAY
Jump rope x 100 + strength workout (this workout always kicks my butt!)

WEDNESDAY
On the backside of my housing development, there’s a nice stretch of sidewalk to do some speedy sprints (is that redundant?). This week’s workout was HARD! But, fun hard. There were a couple walkers on the opposite side of the street trying to figure out my crazy, which just made me laugh more at myself.

That said, I found myself pooping out 40 seconds into every interval. My warm-up was 10 minutes (9:25 pace), followed by 1:1 sprints/recovery jog (spoiler alert: couldn’t even jog!) x 10. That madness ended with another 10-min cool down run (12:23 pace, whomp).

Zero energy to do my core workout after that, so I bumped it to after my Thursday easy run.

THURSDAY
Treadmill Thursday: 4.20 miles, 45:34

Splits: 10:36 / 10:56 / 11:12 / 10:49

Ended with Wednesday’s core workout. 😉

FRIDAY
REST Day (and Date Night). We went to members’ preview opening of the Vivian Maier exhibit at the Arts Center, followed by dinner at Eatery A.

SATURDAY
Back on my treadmill (the humidity is back, you guys) for an easy, SLOW 3-miler.

Splits: 12:09 / 11:56 / 11:41

SUNDAY
RACE DAY! And It. Was. AWESOME. Despite the humidity (OMG SERIOUSLY, WHERE IS FALL?!) making a comfortable 55 degrees feel 20 degrees warmer, I felt great for this 10-mile run.

I really focused on my coach’s prescribed “easy 7-mile run” mentality, which seemed to help! And I felt like I had the right amount of energy to increase my pace for the latter part of the race.

You know what was weird about this run? How good I felt on zero fuel. No GU or gluten-free figgies (though I had them both on me); no Gatorade on the course. I even packed a salt tab, too, JUST IN CASE. When I lined up for the start, that’s when I realized that I forgot to eat my pre-race GU. I just shrugged it off, thinking “I have two!” in case things went bad (read: I got SUPER hungry). I had my usual race morning breakfast (egg sandwich, holla!). And I only sipped water at the fuel stops (this race had stations at about every 2 miles). Totally, completely perplexing.

10 miles, 10:16 pace overall.

Anyways, I’ll have a race recap up soon!

WEEKLY RUNS: 4
WEEKLY MILEAGE: 21.2 miles
TOTAL TRAINING MILES: 131.76 total miles!