Charlotte Marathon Training - Week 16 of 18

eeeeeeek

Week Beginning thoughts: Getting down to the wire here. Let's do this.

Monday
Planned: strength
Did: strength
Good lift today, felt strong. No real residual soreness from the long weekend miles, which seems promising.

maintaining in all categories :)

Tuesday
Planned: 8 m
Did: 8.10 mi in 2 parts
Had to split this one again due to time constraints.
Part 1: 6.21 mi @ 8:24/mi avg
This was a good one, felt like I was pushing a little but nothing overreaching. Cool weather but breezy and the sun was actually quite warm since it was late afternoon. Wrapped up the 10k in a little under 53 minutes then hopped in the car to head to daycare and get little D.
Part 2: 1.89 mi @ 8:41/mi avg
The neighborhood hills got me on this one, but legs still felt ok. Did a quick wrap-up for the total of 8 miles I needed before heading in for dinner. Late afternoon runs are SO HARD.

Wednesday
Planned: 5 m
Did: 5.15 mi @ 8:06/mi avg
When hubby decides to do your lunch run with you, "5 easy" becomes "5 tempo". 😏 Two of the miles were sub-8, and this was the hilly Upstate Loop route. Pretty happy with this. And it was a beautifully cool day out, though it got a little warm in the sun since this is a mostly un-shady route.

Thursday
Planned: 5 m
Did: 5.0 mi @ 7:39/mi avg with 5x800 repeats
#SpeedworkThursday!
Treadmill this morning for some early speedwork. Did 800m repeats and boy were these challenging! Felt good though.

198 heart rate? yikes.

Pretty pleased with all of this!

Friday
Planned: rest
Did: rest
Anniversary celebrations on Thursday night forced a Friday rest day. Work hard, play hard! Gotta let loose sometimes.

Saturday
Planned: 4 m pace or 12 m
Did: 12.02 mi @ 8:39/mi avg
Ran early with a small group downtown. Felt great to get up and get this knocked out early! We held a strong pace typical for this group, with a few miles around 8:20/mi pace. Not bad for "long slow run". Oops. Powered through some hills and escaped downtown before the Spinx Run Fest races got underway and made travel difficult. Crazy to think that the 8am race start time makes me thing "ugh, that's SO LATE". #perspective

Sunday
Planned: 4 m pace or 12 m
Did: 4.05 mi @ 9:50/mi w/ stroller (780 ft elevation gain)
The energy required to pack up D and I and the stroller into the car just to drive 1 mile so that I could run on flat surface and have a prayer at hitting race pace while pushing an extra ~40+ lbs was just not in the cards today. I chose the more physically difficult but logistically simpler option of a neighborhood stroller run with the understanding that race pace would not be part of today's achievements. It was a beautifully chilly morning when D and I set out around 9am, and we got a nice hilly 4 miles through the neighborhood. We even got to see some of the construction vehicles (2 bulldozers and an excavator!) which really made the morning for D.

bulldozers!

Yay

Miles this week: 34.32 mi

Week-ending thoughts: I was able to hit some strong speeds this week and got in all of the workouts as planned. 2 weeks to go. Eeek!