Weekly Wrap-Up: May 7-13

I know, I’m late. I visited my parents this weekend and didn’t have time to post this after I got home on Sunday. I was up there for Mother’s Day. Mom isn’t a runner, but I have to point out that she won her age group two years in a row at the Teal Diva 5K. Yeah, that’s a spoiler for the 2018 Teal Diva 5K, and I really need to finish that recap.

The last two years, the Teal Diva 5K was on Mother’s Day weekend. I’m really, really glad they moved it up a couple of weeks.

Also, I found out this week that I can’t count to 10.

Weight Check: 172.2 pounds, up 0.9 from last week. Since I knew I wouldn’t be home Sunday morning, I did my weigh in Saturday morning before my long run. Sure, it might have turned out better if I had done a Sunday weigh in, but I shouldn’t have to rely on a long run to end up at a decent weight. I’ll try to buckle down a bit this week.

This Week’s Runs
Day Scheduled Total Miles
Monday 5 miles easy plus strides 5.80
Wednesday 15 minutes warm up, 10×30 second hill repeats with 1:00 in between, 15 minute cool down (or until 5 miles) 5.01
Friday 4 miles easy 4.01
Saturday 9 miles easy 9.01

Total: 23.83 miles

Monday felt cooler than 55 degrees, but I didn’t mind. My legs were a little bit tired, mainly on the uphills and during the strides at the end, but it wasn’t too terrible. I kept a pretty steady average pace throughout the first 5 miles. The strides were tough, but I still managed to make the last one the fastest one.

On Wednesday, the weather was fine, 53 degrees. My legs felt OK at the beginning, but got more tired as I went on.

So I still don’t know how I screwed it up, but I did 12 repeats instead of 10. Counting to 10 is apparently too much for me to handle.

I ran until I hit 5 miles, so I didn’t actually run any extra total distance, I just did two extra hill repeats. I definitely had to walk after the last one, but was able to jog, slowly, after that for the rest of the cool down. My paces were all over the place for the repeats, although with 30 second intervals it’s tough to keep a consistent pace. I did push a little harder on the very last interval, and tied for my fastest pace on that one.

Friday, the weather wasn’t too bad, 58 and overcast. My legs were a little bit tired from Wednesday’s workout. I managed to speed up just a little bit on each mile, but I kept the effort fairly easy until the end.

On Saturday, summer arrived. The weather was bad, 66 and humid, but I expected it to be worse. My legs felt a little tired at first, but later on, I didn’t notice the fatigue, and maybe that was the weather distracting me. The later miles were definitely slower, and it wasn’t that my legs felt tired, it was just a general lack of energy caused by the heat, and it didn’t help that this was my longest run since my half marathon in December.

I stopped at several water fountains along the way, and had Gu at around 4.3 miles. I managed to not take any walk breaks other than those. I just took it slow and got through it. It was pretty miserable, though.

This week, I’m going back to 5 days of running. Four days a week was nice while it lasted. I’ll miss my Tuesday mornings, but I need to train 5 days a week if I want to have any chance at a good race in New York City. Also, I hope to have a Teal Diva 5K recap, plus another post on Thursday.