Disclaimer: I received a free entry to Vermont City Marathon as part of being a BibRave Pro. Learn more about becoming a BibRave Pro (ambassador), and check out BibRave.com to find and write race reviews!
Love the light at this time of year, hanging out with my foam roller and other trigger point apparatus, and why does yoga give me hives???
Thankfully, I was able to shake off my training funk during a couple awesome-feeling easy runs. There’s something that happens in the span of a short half-hour run that allows for freedom to explore emotions tied to marathon training — rather than dreading the hours-long trod of long runs (maybe with too much time to think or your emotions to run the gamut). The lightness of running for fun returns, and then I feel full of hope again and ready to go to work.
MONDAY Rest Day — plus a massage after work. My session felt pretty mediocre, which is disappointing (as I’ve been seeing the same massage therapist for several months now). I’m hoping she was just having an off day, but it was bad enough for me to consider maybe scheduling my next appointment with someone else. Bummer.
TUESDAY Easy and Strides and strength workout all on the schedule. I felt OK enough to get in my easy run outdoors… but didn’t feel like doing either my Strides or my strength workout. I know, I know. I feel you judging me! But the weather was beautiful, so I was at least able to finish my 5 miles outside.
5 miles / 50:13 / 10:02 average pace
Splits: 9:50, 10:10, 10:04, 10:07, 9:59
WEDNESDAY I opted to do Wednesday’s Intervals 8×400 workout on the treadmill to target consistent paces. And looking back, my 400s were considerable slower during this workout than they were a few weeks ago. Yuck.
5.98 total miles / 1:03:55 / 10:42 average pace
warm-up 12:04
1: 7:57 (pace) / 11:46
2: 7:51 / 11:55
3: 7:51 / 11:57
4: 7:59 / 11:52
5: 8:26 / 11:55
6: 8:20 / 11:51
7: 8:27 / 11:51
8: 7:53 / 11:57
cool down 12:09
THURSDAY Another solid Yoga Roots class. I took an extra 20 minutes before class started to lie in the yoga room in savasana and just BE STILL. It felt incredible. And then I broke out into a rash again mid-way through the class. ?
FRIDAY Rest Day! And lots of foam rolling before bed.
SATURDAY The big fat 20-miler! Yes, I’m 6 weeks away from my marathon date, but I have 2 20-milers and another 22 on my plan. I know that I can easily run a half marathon distance. I’m confident even that 15 is challenging but doable. But I need practice on that really bad place around 18 miles in; hence, why I’m actually happy that my training is structured as such. I’m also not sure of my fueling strategy yet; I repeated what I used on a long run a couple weeks ago to see if it would get me through my 20… and I was getting indigestion from the Cytomax, which I’ve never previously experienced. SIGH.
There were a lot of moments during this run where I had to remind myself: How do I feel right now?
I was constantly doing a body assessment — what feels good and what doesn’t — to get myself present and not thinking ahead. Think about the mile you’re in… That’s one of the most important things for me right now in training. I already know these long runs will be hard (spoiler alert: it was). But thinking about that at Mile 4 won’t do me any good.
The 20-mile course with the Capital Striders took us from Drake University all the way to the Fairgrounds, back through downtown, up Ingersoll and back to campus. I actually really enjoyed the route!
I did look to my 2015 marathon training to see what time I completed my 20-miler then (I only did one in that training cycle) — I finished this run 5 minutes faster. Cool thing to look at and compare for a little perspective.
SUNDAY Happy Easter! I felt weighted down by all the food and drink from the holiday and never completed my Recovery run. I apparently have hit the point in marathon training where I keep making excuses not to do my workouts. At least I foam rolled again before bed? So, yeah, I need to stop that!
WEEKLY RUNS: 3 runs
WEEKLY MILES: 30.98 miles
TOTAL TRAINING MILES: 274.56 miles
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