67 Miles and Feeling Good

It was a rough (very rough) 10 months this past winter dealing with my hip injury, so I am incredibly happy to be feeling good and glad to be training hard again. I am thoroughly enjoying the process of this build-up and am also happy that I hit 67 miles this week. Not all of my workouts were perfect, but I know this is all part of the process.

Monday

AM – 5 miles, easy

I did a couple of miles with the training group ladies and then finished up on my own with a loop around the Park Strip.

PM – 5 miles, easy

I pushed Cullen in the stroller to the airport. I am so glad that kid still loves our stroller runs.

Tuesday

9 miles – interval workout

6 x 800 meters

These were tough! They were tough because my goal pace was 2:50, but I was no where near that pace when running them. I tried, but my legs don’t have the turn-over they once did.

1 – 2:58

2 – 2:58

3 – 2:58

4 – 2:58

5 – 2:54

6 – 2:56

I had 3 minutes rest (easy jogging) in between and believe me I used every second of that rest. You can read more about how I was able to bring my times down on the last two intervals in this blog post.

Wednesday

5 miles, easy

Easy recovery run with my friend Brittany. Time goes by so much faster with a friend!

Thursday

6 miles, easy

A nice easy run through the neighborhoods before (most of) the rest of the world was up.

Friday

13 miles – tempo workout

2 x 15 minutes @ tempo

In the past I’ve had goal paces for my tempo workouts, but this time Nichole had me target a certain heart rate. I set my watch to beep at me if I was outside the specified zone. Being able to do this allowed me to work within that true threshold effort the entire time. My pace did drop from 7:05 to 7:25 by the end of the workout, which is a bummer, but Nichole assured me the faster paces will come.

Saturday

5 miles, easy run

A nice easy run with my destination being Fire Island Bakery. Nothing like a rhubarb scone and coffee to motivate me through the run–although I think it also made the run feel that much longer.

Sunday

19 miles, long run

My long runs have been going really well lately. Just two months ago I was struggling to run 10 miles, so I am very happy to pound out 19 today with no issues. It rained the entire 2 hours and 39 minutes I was running, which wasn’t ideal, but I will still take the rain over the snow/ice/winter conditions any day!

Total: 67 miles

I know I said this at the beginning, but I am so thankful to be feeling good and being able to put all these miles in. I still have a long ways to go to get to where I was last spring/summer, but at least I am able to make progress!

This week the mileage is a little lighter, which will be nice. I’m hoping to get some good sleep this week as my sleep has been more disruptive lately (and for once I can’t blame Cullen). For some reason I’ve been waking up several times each night and waking up at 5:00 a.m. wide-eyed and bushy-tailed, so I’m sipping on some sleepytime tea right now and hoping it helps me sleep soundly tonight.