IMT Des Moines Half Marathon: Training Week #10

- Mel

Little late getting this week’s post out — especially as I was out WAY past my bedtime on Tuesday and still feeling like I’m catching up from traveling over the weekend. YAWN. Thankful for a recovery week!

TEN WEEKS went by so quickly. I’m two weeks away from my goal race, and prepared by… running another half marathon. Yep, I had a 14-miler on my schedule for the week, so I took a little road trip to run the Heartland Half Marathon in Omaha, Nebraska. I’ll admit, I had a lot of confusion up-front as to WHY have a 14-mile training run when you’re only running 13.1 — my half training in the past maxed out at 10 miles — but I trusted the plan and my coach and her reasons for making my life miserable. I also listened to my coach when she told me to take it easy on myself if I felt like the cumulative fatigue got to be too much (spoiler alert: it has).

On the schedule:

  • Two easy runs
  • One speed workout — Pick-ups!
  • A half marathon…
  • Err, I mean, a 14-mile long run
  • Strength + Core workouts

MONDAY
Rest Day and foam rolling!

TUESDAY
It’s still crazy to me that my mid-week easy runs are 50-minutes long. I mean, I’m crazy impressed with myself that I’m following through on what I used to consider an extraneous workout.

My easy run was followed up by a core workout: 4.3 miles at 11:12 average pace

WEDNESDAY
Pick-Ups! These are still one of my favorite speed workouts to do. Wednesday’s challenge was 2 minutes of speed, followed by 2 minutes of recovery jog (x6). On my pick-up days, I also do a 10-minute warm-up and cool down.

Total workout was about 4.3 miles. My fastest 2 minutes (the last sprint) was at an 8:42 pace.

THURSDAY
Supposed to do my strength workout tonight, but felt like I needed the day off (my coach said I could!) 😉

FRIDAY
Rest day – and packing for my run-cation.

SATURDAY
Easy 30-minute shakeout run in the morning — I woke up SO EARLY and didn’t have to — and totally didn’t feel like unpacking my Garmin from my suitcase, so I let the treadmill record my workout. Got in 2.55 miles at a 11:46 average pace (woooooooo, that felt slow).

SUNDAY
Ran the Heartland Half Marathon, since I was scheduled to aforementioned 14 miles (my +1 actually ended up being around .7) — read race recap! I had a really GREAT experience in Omaha, and I had a great race!

And now… it’s TAPER TIME!

WEEKLY RUNS: 4
WEEKLY MILES: 24.8
TOTAL TRAINING MILES: 181.56