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| snow, snow, go away… don't come again another day |
I like to torture myself by looking at pictures like this one below and wishing I was on the other (warmer) coast.
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| If anyone wants to scoop me up and take me here, I won't resist. |
Surprisingly, with the cold temps, snowy streets and winter blues-y attitude, I have had some pretty stellar weeks of training. I decided at the end of last year to take the month of January off from racing. I raced a lot last year, and felt like I needed to take the month off to rest my body and my mind. This has allowed me to focus more on my training and working towards getting stronger and (hopefully) faster. I've unfortunately had to take a couple extra days off due to my work schedule + frigid temps + icy roads but I've managed to complete all of my long runs as well as the speed work.
This is what the past week of training looked like:
Thursday: 15 min warmup, 4 mile tempo between marathon and half marathon pace, 10 min cool down. I ran the tempo miles @ 8:23, 8:19, 8:15, 8:11. For this run I got in my car and drove to the town I used to live in. I've been pretty bored running the same routes around my house lately, so I thought running in a new area would help. It did.
Friday: OFF
Saturday: I met up with Stephanie to do 16-17 miles with the last 20 min at marathon pace. Stephanie was running 6 miles, so I couldn't pass up the opportunity to run some miles with a friend. I drove down to Mass to meet her at the paved trail we like to run on. It was a great 6 miles of running and run therapy that was very much needed by both of us. I finished the last 10.5 miles on my own, explored a new part of the trail, got soaked by a nice rainy/slushy mix, ran the last 20 min at marathon pace, and then drove home in a snow storm.
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Sunday: 40 min easy on snow covered roads. I was supposed to do strides at the end, but the snow made it difficult to pick up the pace. I decided it wasn't worth the risk of injury and didn't do the strides.
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| One of the few times I think the snow looks pretty. |
Monday: OFF
Tuesday: 15 min warm up, 10 x 200m on, 200 off @ 10k pace, 10 min cool down. I averaged around 7:30 pace and felt really strong throughout.
Wednesday: Should have been 40-50 min easy. When I woke up at 5, the temperature was 4 degrees, and it was too early to use the treadmill, I was unable to do the run. Instead I did Dr. Lesko's dirty dozen and worked my core. I didn't have time to run after work because of dinner plans. Weather permitting, I'm hoping to get this run in on Friday.
Thursday: 15 min warm up, 1 mile (3 min rec), 2 x 800 (3 min rec), 4 x 400 (90 sec rec) all done at 5k pace, 10 min cool down. I'm not going to lie, I was nervous for this workout. I was nervous about the paces. My 5k PR was a 7:11 pace. I want to be faster than that. So, my goal was to do this workout at 7:05 pace, which scared me. We're in the middle of another very cold span of weather, so I did this workout (reluctantly) on the treadmill. I nailed it. All were done at 7:04 pace, and the last 400 I did at 6:40 pace. My legs were feeling it towards the end, but I did it. From this workout I learned one very important thing: I need to be able to believe in myself more. I'm getting there, but I still have some work to do.
Reason number 672 why I love running: it's one of the few things helping to keep my winter blues at bay.
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