Fall 2013 training - week 1

I ran my first half marathon in March 2012, and I was hooked. There's something about the half distance that I really love. Long enough to be a challenge, not so long as to consume your entire life with training.

Waiting for the start of my first half, the Chilly, with Janice, who gets a lot of the credit (blame?) for me actually making it through the training program.

Four half marathons later, I was eager to get to #5 and run it hard and fast (you can make your own dirty joke here). I chose the Mississauga half in May as #5, and set a goal of finishing it in 2 hours. I had run 2:05 in September, so it was a reasonable goal. I surprised myself with a 1:58 at that race, which was amazing and fantastic, but left me thinking well what the heck goal do I pursue now? I had really thought, going into it, that I would need to run 2 or 3 more halfs before I got under 2 hours, so hadn't considered what would happen next.

My fall goal race is the Toronto Waterfront Half, and my recent (awesome) 5k race results have me contemplating aggressive time goals. I tend to underestimate my abilities going into races and then surprise myself, but I have to wonder if that attitude might be slowing me down a bit. So for this one I'm going to aim high and see what happens. Can I now take off 5 minutes to hit 1:53? I'm going to try!

Past week's training:

Monday: Canada Day 5k race

Tuesday: easy 9k with Patty at a slightly less ridiculously early hour than usual (in summer I typically run/bike at 5am on weekdays - this week I got to 'sleep in' and start my workouts at 6. The luxury!). Calves were really stiff from Monday's race but loosened up nicely as we ran. Upper body/core TRX workout in the evening

Wednesday: 16.4k bike ride around my neighbourhood. My neighbourhood has a lot of hills. It's very good for my cardio/cross training but I'm pretty sure the City has elves or gremlins who sneak out and make the hills steeper when they see my garage open and the bike come out. This may explain why our property taxes went up; I'm sure elves don't work cheap.
Thursday: 7k run including 3 repeats on the evil Chedoke hill. I love how the golfers sit in their carts and stare at me as I struggle up that damn hill. I skipped the opportunity to also run the 300 or whatever it is stairs at Chedoke. The hill was painful enough! I was supposed to do a TRX workout in the evening but we went out for dinner with an assortment of relatives, so that didn't happen.

I didn't run these. Too lazy.

Friday: got in the full body TRX workout I missed on Thursday. Ate way too much chocolate. WORTH IT.

I had serious doubts about these, because raisins are evil. It turns out a thick enough coating of chocolate totally cancels out the evil.

Saturday: Meetup run at the fabulous Nicole's house! She organized a potluck brunch that started with a 10k run - gotta earn the food, you know. It was stupidly hot and by 7k I was mentally pretty much done, so I ended up calling it a day at 9.3k . Close enough.

My contribution to runch (run/brunch). No, I didn't show up and just hand Nicole a pineapple, I did cut them up!

Sunday: 6k solo, then 16k with Patty. So glad she joined me, I would have quit this run about a hundred times without someone dragging my whining ass through it. I do not run run well in hot and humid. I think maybe I'm under-hydrating when I'm not running - I'm going to be conscious about drinking more fluids this week and see if that helps on these long hot/humid runs.

I am a delicate flower who wilts in the sun. Except picture the flower also dripping with sweat. Running is so sexy.

Weekly total: 52.9 km run in 5:08:16. A 5k PB, got in both planned TRX workouts and an easy 16k on the bike. Nailed it this week!

 Song of the week: This week I added Fallout Boy's "My Songs Know What You Did in the Dark" to my running playlist. The 'light 'em up - I'm on FIIIIRE!!' bit is really motivating. I can tell this is one of those songs I'm going to love for about a month and then will suddenly not be able to stand hearing anymore, so I will enjoy it while it lasts.

This upcoming week features my first tempo of this cycle and a cut back 16k after this week's 22k long run. Since the tempo is scheduled for Thursday I'm warning you all now that it will be really windy Thursday. It's always really windy on tempo day. And the wind will change direction as soon as I turn around to head home. It's just how it is. This week I also go back to 5 runs a week (up from 4 + 1 day biking), which I am looking forward to. Hoping to still fit in a weekly bike ride, but between a full time job and 2 kids, there's just not always enough hours in the day!