Weekly Wrap-Up: May 1-7

Monday morning it was 72 degrees. This morning (even though I wasn’t running) it was 41 degrees, with a high temperature of 70 today. Go home, Mother Nature, you’re drunk.

In other news, I have a coach now. I mean an official, professional coach, not just my co-worker who answers my questions and helped me create my marathon training plan the past two years. My coach is starting up a virtual training group for fall marathons, so I decided to join. I think I’ll do well training with a group, even if I’ll still be running alone.

Also, I ordered my next pair of shoes this week. I went with another pair of Brooks Adrenaline 17s, but had to order them because my local running store only carries Adrenalines in one color for size 10.5 wide. As long as I swap colors each time, I can rotate them and still keep track of which pair is the newer one and which one is the older one. My last pair of 16s is up to 389.4 miles, and I’ll be retiring them at 400.

I might be doing some different things in my training this year now that I’ve got a coach, but one thing I’m not changing is my shoes. Some day I’d like to try out a different running shoe, but that day will be after November 5.

Weight Check: 163.5 pounds, down 0.5 from last week. I’ll take it. Too much stress at work led to too much Mountain Dew, but I guess my eating was good enough, and my mileage was good, so I had a small loss. Next weekend we’ll be celebrating Mother’s Day, which will mean food and beer with my family, and with a 5K race on Saturday (more on that later) I won’t really have a long run this week. I’m hoping I can buckle down during the week and stick to water.

This Week’s Runs
Day Total Miles
Monday 6.21
Tuesday 6.31
Wednesday 5.03
Friday 6.01
Saturday 11.06

Total: 34.62 miles

So, Monday. LIke I said, 72(!) degrees, and it was humid, too. And because obviously I wasn’t miserable enough, nature called. I had hoped to get in 7 miles, but I had to cut it short. My legs held up OK, though.

Tuesday was much better weather-wise, 56 degrees and no humidity. I still took it easy, which is what I’m supposed to do, because my legs didn’t feel great. Somehow I managed a reverse split without really trying, so there’s that.

Wednesday was my weekly brain torture session treadmill run. I really pushed the pace near the end, because I knew I wasn’t going to do another workout run before my 5K race. I started at 10:43/mile, and finished at 9:05/mile. My legs felt fine. I didn’t put anything in my notes why I went to 5.03 miles, and I can’t think of a good reason why I would do that. Well, I’ll take the extra .02. If I finish the year at 1500.01 miles, I’ll look back on this run as the reason I hit my 2017 mileage goal.

Friday was a little warmer and a little humid, since it had rained a lot Thursday night, but it still wasn’t Monday bad. My legs felt a little tired early on, then they got better as I kept going. I don’t understand why that happens sometimes, but I won’t complain too much. I managed another reverse split.

Saturday had a little bit of everything. It was only 52 degrees, which felt glorious after last Saturday. It started out overcast with a little bit of drizzle, and by the time I was done, the sky had cleared, and the wind had really picked up. My legs felt OK, though, and it was a decent run. My pace was pretty steady most of the run, and I finished strong. Oh yeah, the reason that I picked 11.06 miles is because I forgot that I got to 5.03 for my treadmill run, and I thought a run that ended in .06 would give me a semi-round number for my weekly total.

Next Saturday is the Teal Diva 5K. I’m curious to see what I can do. I will say that I’ve looked at the forecast, and right now, I don’t like what I see. A lot can change in a week, though. Hopefully I can still run well regardless of the weather.