Charlotte Marathon Training - Week 10 of 18

Week 10 - double digits!

Week Beginning Thoughts: Really the only thing on my mind right now is "how the heck am I going to do 9 miles on Tuesday with a hurricane rolling through?" This will be interesting.

Monday
Planned: strength
Did: strength
Working from home due to #Irmageddon so improvised a quick strength routine. Did two rounds of my favorite, the Jenna Wolfe Hotel Pyramid Workout split by a round of P90X Ab Ripper X.

My calves are going to be sore tomorrow, like they always are, from the Pyramid workout. Lots of jumping. Oof.

Tuesday
Planned: 9 m
Did: 9.34 mi in 2 parts
Part 1: 5.66mi @ 9:00/mi avg
Headed out of work after my last meeting of the day to knock out as much of this run as I could get done before we had to leave to pick up D. Managed to squeeze in a bit over 5 and a half before we headed home.
Part 2: 3.68 mi @ 9:26/mi avg
Started off from daycare when we picked up D, Scott drove them home and I ran home. I knew it was approximately 3-3.5 miles to the house, so my run went a little long overall. Still, not bad. I was tired by the time this part started. Heck, the whole run felt like I was slogging through peanut butter. My legs just did NOT want to move. And it wasn't even hot or humid or anything! Nice and overcast. My calf muscles ARE sore, just like I predicted. Combination of that and the fact that it's late afternoon, my energy is hitting its low point for the day.
In summary, this is one of those "just get it done" runs. And it is done.

Wednesday
Planned: XT + 4m run
Did: 4.09 mi @ 8:48/mi avg
A little bit better today on pace, but man my calves are still sore. Plus, running late in the day yesterday + early today means legs are already tired. Weather was nice at least. Glad to get it done early today, even with the tired legs!

Thursday
Planned: 4 m run
Did: rest
I brought my bags to do speedwork on the treadmill today, but realized I've got the BMW 2-Miler tomorrow afternoon which should serve as sufficient speedwork. I'll add warm-up and cool-down to it to get to the 4 mile total I need. So today's a rest day.

Friday
Planned: rest
Did: 2 mi warm-up + BMW 2-Miler Race
BMW 2-Miler race report here.

Saturday
Planned: 9 m pace
Did: 9.01 mi @ 8:27/mi avg + 0.88 mi CD
I didn't mean to do an extra mile today, but a dog situation caused me to take a detour that took me farther (further?) from home than I intended to be.
I set out with zero route plans. I wasn't sure how today would go given it was just ~13 hours from previous race effort. I initially thought of just heading over to the Swamp Rabbit Trail and doing a simple out-and-back. I figured doing the bulk of the run on flat would make it easier. Then I realized, what was the point of making training easy on myself? The point is to do things that are difficult so that race day seems easier. So with that thought I took a left out of the neighborhood instead of a right and headed towards the hilly Green Valley route.

Morning fog over the pond entering GV

I felt good going through the neighborhood there, didn't look at my watch, but felt like I had a steady pace. Legs felt fine. At one point I realized that I'd forgotten my pepper spray and of course I started playing out scenarios in my head of what I would do if I encountered a bear. 🐻

I popped out the other side of GV, and headed back down Old White Horse Rd. The sun was getting warmer at this point and I reached my next turn-off at just past the half way point of my run. Time for a snack.

Ran out of Stinger waffles, but thankfully had a leftover from my last flight on United.
Best in-flight snacks EVER.

Continued on and planned to do a ~1-mile out-and-back then return to the neighborhood to finish out the miles. As I was trucking along, I heard rustling and barking from the woods behind me. Hello, dogs! I stopped and talked nicely to them, and they quickly lost interest... but I didn't feel like I wanted to take the chance of going back that direction again, so I continued forward. There were LOTS OF HILLS ahead of me.

Red arrow = heartrate spike at dog sighting. Then the hills started.

I stopped at the top of one pretty significant climb to check Google Maps - I basically knew where I was, but I was curious how much farther this route was going to take me. I calculated about an extra mile, and I was right. Not as bad as I thought, but this route was much hillier than I'd intended when I set out this morning. Great for a race pace tempo, right??

At least there were a few pretty sights on this route.

I plodded onward, stopping to walk a couple of times when I felt adrenaline getting the better of me. Eventually made it back to the main road and decided when I hit 9 miles I would stop and walk a bit, then jog the rest of the way home.

Apparently I was eager to finish, as my last mile was my fastest by a large margin! As I stopped my watch I caught a glimpse of my last split and said "oops". 😵

Walked a bit, then jogged home. Felt good but definitely glad to be done. Looking forward to some long slow miles tomorrow!

Sunday
Planned: 19 m
Did: 18.25 mi @ 12:00/mi avg with 6x30s strides
Robin and I headed up to a new route today for our long run... we've had several other runner friends mention Lake Summit before, but hadn't been there ourselves. It's a hard-packed gravel road that circles a lake just over the NC/SC border. Mostly flat with just two climbs at one end, total of a little over 9 miles per loop. We decided this would be a great weekend to try it out! We headed out before dawn to drive up and get started running right as the sun was up. The little park (Tuxedo Park) has a freshly-paved lot, bathroom facilities (🎉) and a playground. Perfect!

Fog over the lake

We set out on our first loop and felt good. It was really foggy, but a beautifully chilly morning. Nice and quiet. Pretty uneventful for the first half of the loop, then we came to The Hills. First was a climb up a gravel road that put us out onto the highway. Had to then run the shoulder of the highway up another decent climb before we got back onto the quiet road by the lake. They were challenging, but was kind of a nice change from the otherwise pancake-flat road.

One lap around the lake, 2 hills.

  

Climb up the highway and into the fog. 

We made it back to the park and took a pit stop for toilet facilities and food. Re-starting for Lap #2 was hard, both of us emitting an audible "ooooof" as we began running. We decided to avoid the hills on the second lap (and not run the risk of over-shooting distance) and we did an out-and-back of the first part of the loop. This was a good decision.

No more fog, but still pretty!

 We reached the start of the hill climbs and turned around for the final stretch. I decided to try out incorporating some strides into the final miles of my run after reading a Runner's World article a few days ago. The basic idea is you "surge" for a short time (I did 30 seconds) and recover in between. This forces your already-tired legs to do just a little more. I think the article I read said to shoot for ~10k pace (so not a sprint, but fairly fast). I set out thinking I'd do 4, but ended up doing 6. I think I did them too fast, because by the last one I was definitely dead! Still, pretty happy with how these felt and will be incorporating them into more of my long runs.

It's also a nice distraction in the final miles of the long run. The legs go "oh boy, something new and different!" Not really, but it's a good mental break, too.

We finished up and were both DONE. So done that we didn't even get a post-run selfie. Drove home, parted ways, and immediately indulged in shower + lukewarm coffee (a post-run favorite).

Ahhh, much better.

Miles run this week: 45.65 mi 😵

Week-ending thoughts: After a rough few runs to start the week, I'm really pleased with how the week ended! I know my toughest weeks are ahead, so I'm trying to mentally prepare myself for that. Physically I feel really good, and I think I'm right where I should be for this training cycle.