Weekly Wrap-Up: July 16-22

That was a really busy week. The running was…OK, I guess. Long runs in my neighborhood suck, though.

Weight Check: 165.6 pounds, up 0.3 from last week. I’ll take it. I had a stressful week, so my diet wasn’t great. I’m relieved I didn’t gain more.

Total: 34.05 miles

Wednesday was a little short, but I’ll explain that later.

Monday was a rare pleasant surprise. The weather was terrible. My legs weren’t 100% recovered from my Saturday long run. I wasn’t expecting much from this run. I took the first mile very easy, then started pushing. I managed to improve my pace on each mile, and while I was definitely pushing a little harder than a normal easy run, it was never all out (except maybe at the very end). I did stop just after 3 miles to get some water, but other than that, I ran with no walk breaks. Also, I had a Gu before I started, and that may have helped. So I was pleasantly surprised and pleased with this run.

On Tuesday, the weather was still pretty miserable. My legs seemed to be OK, though. I did manage to improve my pace on each mile while keeping the effort “easy” until near the end. I’ll take it.

Wednesday once again had miserable weather. My legs felt OK at first, but I definitely felt fatigue after (and probably during) the last interval. I was pleased with my paces on the hard intervals, and really happy with my pace on the last one.

I was really tired during the cool down. I took a few walk breaks, and decided I would only go 5 miles total, which still gave me a 15+ minute cool down. I do think, looking at my pace chart, that I got a small mental boost after I decided to make it a 5 miler.

I don’t like cutting workouts short, but with my long run looming on Friday this week, it felt like it was probably the right decision.

Speaking of Friday…

I got through it, but I hope I never have to run 14 miles in my neighborhood again.

The weather was slightly less miserable than recently. My legs were OK for a while, but got tired at the end.

I didn’t have access to water fountains, and just a water bottle I left outside my house. I ended up stopping 7 times for water. Two of those, around 4 miles and 9.4 miles, I also had Gu. Since it was an early start (I needed to get done before work) I didn’t have much time before the run for fueling, so I just had an extra Gu maybe 5 minutes before I started.

I didn’t really need to make any effort to add hills to my run. It was significantly more hilly than my last long run.

There were a few spots, especially from around mile 7 to mile 10, where my legs wanted to go a little faster, maybe 12:00/mile, but I didn’t think I could sustain that pace, and I took a few extra walk breaks during that stretch just to try to slow down a little.

The last two miles were still pretty rough, but not quite as bad as the last 3 miles last week. I knew I’d had less water than usual for a long run, and my run was more hilly than usual, so I tried to play it safe. I definitely didn’t feel completely drained like last week.

Overall, it wasn’t quite as bad as I’d expected. I can’t call it a great run, but it could have been worse. I still don’t want to do any more long runs in my neighborhood, at least not in summer.

Saturday’s run felt anti-climactic. Of course, I was on call for work, so I was worried about getting paged during my run. The weather was fairly miserable. My legs were pretty much dead, since I’m used to having a rest day after my long runs. I made it through the 5 miles, was even able to speed up a little at the end, and didn’t get any calls from work during the run (before and after are a different story).

I adjusted my schedule, and (except for Wednesday) got my miles in, so there’s that.

Next week, my schedule looks a bit more normal. This time, my 14 miler will be on Saturday, and very likely on the greenway with plenty of water fountains.