accountability Monday

Training Week 7: Niagara Falls International

- Mel

No long lead-ins from me this week. I just reached 22 pages on my Capstone paper, so I’m all word-ed out.

MONDAY: My usual weekly resty rest day.

TUESDAY: Ran 3.02 miles (10:15 avg pace); should have done 5, but I just wasn’t feeling it.

WEDNESDAY: Rest; completely crapped out after being in a seminar all day. Skipped my weekly run//yoga club, and I’m bummed about that.

THURSDAY: MOAR REST! I had to prepare for my weekly Capstone session with my advisor.

FRIDAY: Rest; again, what a weird week — we had our departmental retreat, so my schedule was just all out-of-sorts. I could have run after work, but… I opted for napping in my hammock. Oops.

yogafest pittsburgh park outside
Ommmmmm

SATURDAY: YogaFest — I did three sessions: two hour-long flow classes (the first was at 7:30am — yay, me!) and a pure barre intro class in between. The barre class one was so… weird. And not at all what I expected. But doing three classes five hours really tired me out, and made me feel less bad about taking so many rest days this week. Also, I freakin’ woke up at 6am — with a massive headache, but STILL. Considering my sunburn from just the morning, I’m glad that I went early.

Side note: I feel like Whirl YogaFest always has THE BEST vendors. Like, I got to eat a gluten-free scone for breakfast (thank you immensely, Chateau Cafe). Soergel’s is always there too, with the perfect snacks. And I come home with a bag full of awesome free swag. I also always purchase at least two new tops every year. But please bring back Marty’s Market and their scrambled eggs?

SUNDAY: Ran 6.14 miles, which also (randomly) included a Flash 5K with SCRR to coincide with this summer’s last Open Streets PGH (sad face). The Open Streets events have given me the motivation to wake up early and do training runs with the SCRR group; I didn’t recognize anybody and wasn’t feeling very social (or awake) though, so I just ran by myself. But it’s part of my monthly goals, to run more regularly with them. I had already ran a mile to the meeting point and didn’t find out about the Flash 5K until I arrived, but decided why not? (I mean, aside from being totally exhausted and unable to run another two miles). Well, I was exhausted, and part of that fourth mile was power walking, but I did my six.

running club pittsburgh flash 5k

In complete random turn of events, realized that I beat my 5K PR time by 7 seconds. So I have a new PR: 28:08! Certainly wasn’t expecting that as part of my training week, but I’ll take it!

Total runs: 2
Total weekly miles: 9.16 (this week was another drop-back week in the training program)
Total training miles: 72.80 miles

Training Week 6: Niagara Falls International Marathon

- Mel

This week doesn’t deserve any gold stars. While it’s not something often-talked about in runner’s circles, my motivation and energy takes a nose dive when I’m premenstrual. BUT THIS IS IMPORTANT FOR US, LADIES! I wish, probably like most women, that my cycle would coordinate with my training schedule (especially in my drop-back weeks), but that isn’t reality.

Pun intended: I just gotta flow with it.

Love this pic from run//yoga club!
Love this pic from run//yoga club!

My goal was to get all four of my runs in, but when Friday came-and-went (had to drive to Cleveland), I knew that wasn’t going to happen. My second intent was to at least increase my mileage from last week, which… ehhhhh.

MONDAY: Rest Day

TUESDAY: Cross-training NOPE.

WEDNESDAY: Ran 4 miles with run//yoga club — at a 9:30 pace (seriously). And then 75 minutes of yoga. Admittedly, it was a tough practice after that warm run.

THURSDAY: Rest Day

FRIDAY: Rest Day

SATURDAY: Rest Day (but for serious, I walked all over Cleveland today, so I don’t feel too terrible about skipping another cross-training day).

SUNDAY: Ran 8 miles. It was already 90-some degrees at 9am in Cleveland. Regardless of the ridiculous amounts of sweat (omg even my super-old sports bra ran color onto my white tank because of it), this was a fun run around the city. Tackled two bridges, saw three sport stadiums, and ran through four different neighborhoods and through my old college campus — which has changed something amazing since ten years ago. My amphipod handheld water bottle only took me 5 miles before I had to buy another bottle at Starbucks (did I mention: HOT?).

Weekly Runs: 2
Weekly Miles: 12.04 miles (that’s not an increase from last week, unfortunately)
Total Training Miles: 63.64 miles

Training Week 5: Niagara Falls International Marathon

- Mel

With my workouts this weekend, let me just say how awesome it is that the boyfriend can drive me to work this morning. WOOF, my legs. I will enjoy my Monday rest day to the fullest.

My training week called for four days of running — with one fast finish workout and a Fartlek (which… what?) and two cross-training days (which, two-a-days are my BFF). I was also back to my increasing-weekly long run on Sunday. My home TRX system was delivered this week, so I’m excited to start those workouts (buuuuut probably not until next week, since I’m traveling this weekend).

Highlights of the week: 7-mile long run and CrossFit
Highlights of the week: 7-mile long run and CrossFit

MONDAY: Day of REST

TUESDAY: 4.03 miles at average 10:11/mi pace. I made sure to stretch a lot today after this run.

WEDNESDAY: 3.04 miles with run//yoga club at average 9:29/mi pace, followed by 75 minutes of hot yoga. This was an awesome class tonight too!

THURSDAY: Today was supposed to be my cross-training day, but I got enough of that from yoga the previous night.

FRIDAY: REST. Today was supposed to be my Fartlek training day with 4 miles easy and some hard 15 second bursts. I was already anticipating a tough CrossFit class the following morning, and of course we ended up doing sprints! #nailedit

SATURDAY: Run 1.45 miles to CrossFit. Today’s workout felt like TWO workouts (I don’t know if I was quite ready for this kind of return to CF). Warm up with some kettlebell swings and single-arm snatches, then 4 rounds of 8 box jumps/8 burpees/40 jump ropes (that was just the warm-up!). The WOD itself was a 20-minute AMRAP: 5 pull-ups, 5 knees-to-elbow (I did my first set of these toes-to-bar), 8 thrusters, 8 cleans, 3 flights of stairs, then road sprints. I intended to run home, but nah, I was good with walking it off — especially since I tweaked something in my glute during sprints (thankfully, while it still feels strained, it didn’t prevent me from my long run on Sunday).

SUNDAY: Run 7.01 miles at a (miserable) average 11:00/mi pace. I felt OK, but definitely felt like I was slogging through these miles again. I took a few 30-second walk breaks throughout the training run too. One of these days I’ll wake up early enough to get ahead of this humidity, but today wasn’t that day. And amidst all the crazy homework I had due, I’m happy that I mustered the energy to pull myself away from my computer for a little while.

Weekly Runs: 4
Weekly Miles: 15.53 miles (that’s a 3.41 increase from last week! woo-hoo!)
Total Training Miles: 51.60 miles