Fall 2013 training - week 2

Back in February, when the weather was cold, I was wading through snowbanks, slipping on ice patches, and summer seemed oh so far away, I registered for the Midsummer Night’s Run 30k. At the time it seemed like a reasonable thing to do.

When faced with this, a 30k summer run was a fabulous idea!

Last Sunday as I slogged through 22k in 94% humidity, wondering if I was going to really regret not reapplying bodyglide halfway through, I realized I have absolutely NO desire to run 30k in the summer. And I especially have no desire to do the 25k+ long runs I would want to fit in before the race, to at least have some semblance of being prepared for the distance. And what if the night of the race is hot and humid? It would be a miserable experience. I run because I love to run, so why set out to do something I know there's a very good chance I'm not going to enjoy? 

I emailed the race director and I am now running the 15k at Midsummer instead. As much as I really, really wanted the sub 3 hour 30k I missed at Around the Bay this year (TRAIN!!!!), I’ll wait to attempt that at ATB in March (especially since they are changing the route to avoid the train crossing, HOORAY!). I can use the 15k results to adjust my training paces, and it's a guaranteed PR since I’ve never raced 15k before. The only sad thing is now I won't be running with Nicole, who is pacing 3 hours in the 30k at Midsummer. I was looking forward to that because Nicole loves running more than anyone and her enthusiasm is infectious.

The ATB train delay. Not that I'm still bitter or anything about missing going sub 3 by almost exactly the amount of time I spent waiting for this freight train to go past.

This week's training:

Monday: TRX class. I have my knock-off straps at home but I like to try and get in a class with a trainer once a week because I work harder in the class. Plus it gives me ideas for stuff to do at home on my other strength training day

My 4 year old demonstrates some unconventional TRX moves

Tuesday: soupy easy 5am 8k with Patty. So humid. Usually Tuesday is a quality workout day (intervals or hills) but last week was my first 50k+ week since April so I wanted to take this week a bit easier to make sure I'm adjusting to the increasing mileage.

Wednesday: Easy 10k at 4:30 am because I woke up before my alarm and figured I might as well get it over with. Windy, humid, hot, a false alarm trip behind some bushes. The usual.

Thursday: 8k tempo run. First attempt at my new McMillan prescribed tempo pace of 5:03-5:13/km. 2k warmup, got the tempo paces almost bang on (5:15, 5:07, 5:13, 5:05), 2k cooldown. The last one included a sprint trying to avoid a bunch of sprinklers - normally in summer I would happily run through the sprinklers but for the first time in ages it wasn't hot! Or humid! It was perfectly pleasant running weather! I had my doubts going in about McMillan's target paces (pre Mississauga I was running tempos at 5:30/km) but the tempo part felt pretty good. Hard, but good, exactly as it should be. Looking forward to the challenge of taking the tempo longer.

Sprinkler gauntlet. I got soaked. Kind of annoyed with it, since it poured rain the night before, so WTF with the sprinklers, Fortinos?

I had a TRX workout planned but was so exhausted Thursday evening I skipped it. I had a lousy night's sleep Wednesday thanks to one of the kids having a nightmare and freaking out every time I tried to leave her alone again in her room. It's pretty hard to sleep in an IKEA kids bed with a 4 year old draped on top of you.

I was seriously regretting that we haven't yet replaced this with a full size bed. And it seems I haven't outgrown the fear of having my feet hanging off the end - THERE MIGHT BE MONSTERS UNDER THERE!!!

Friday: Rest day! Debated doing the missed TRX workout but since I hadn't had a true rest day in a while I figured better to just consider that one lost. I've come to the conclusion that I'm now a Real Runner™ because full on rest days are really annoying. Can't I just sneak in a quick 5k?

Saturday: 18k long run with Patty and Sam. They took me on the Red Hill Valley Trail, which I'd never run before and was a nice change of pace (even if when I google 'Red Hill Valley Trail' the SECOND LINK is 'Body found on Red Hill Valley Trail'), and then along the beach path. The theme of the day seemed to be birds, as Sam ran 6k by herself before joining us and got attacked by the Beach Path Blackbird, which has been aggressively going after people for the last week. And then we saw a girl rollerblading while carrying a very large parrot. I wish I'd thought to grab a picture! Or maybe followed her until the parrot encountered the blackbird. That might have been fun.

Start of the run. I love where I live.

This is why I don't use Runkeeper for tracking except to make sure I get my Gympact credits. The GPS in my phone is f'd up, but turning 18k into 65k is kind of awe inspiringly terrible.

Sunday: 6k recovery run around the neighbourhood. No parrots or attack birds, which was almost disappointing.

Saturday running by the lake, Sunday the view from the escarpment. Have I mentioned I love this city?

I did well this week staying hydrated, although I'm not convinced it helped my running at all. It's all confounded with the change in temperature/drop in humidex that made the last three runs feel so much better.  Drinking more water is easy enough to do, so I will continue (plus it gave me an excuse to buy one of those tumbler/straw glasses everyone is carrying around now).

Added some lime, since Patty reminded me of the existence of those evil Starbucks Lime Refreshers. It's not the same thing at all, but it's better than plain water.

Overall a good week of training. I didn't get in a bike ride, unfortunately, and missed a TRX workout, but this was supposed to be a bit of a cutback week (oops on that 18k run, probably should have been 16k) so I'm good with it.

50.7k run in 4:58 and feeling great. On to week 3! Return of the hills, yay (not sarcasm, I like hills).

Song of the Week: Ready Steady Go - Paul Oakenfold. Good theme song for early in training!