Fall 2013 training week 13: 3 weeks to go

Oh boy, we are getting down to the wire now. Race day transportation issue now resolved: Nicole offered to drive, which is awesome of her, but after discussing with my husband we decided why not book a hotel near the start/finish for Saturday night? That way we can go out for a nice pasta dinner and I don't have to worry about driving in early in the morning. So we'll be ditching the kids with a helpful sister in law and spending the night in downtown Toronto. It should make race morning less stressful, assuming I can find Patty before the race starts! I'm trying to convince him to sign up for the 5k, but no success on that yet.

Monday: Well deserved rest day after the 10k PB. Legs felt surprisingly good, considering; I probably could have gone to TRX class. But I decided I'd earned a day off.

Apropos of nothing, these 100 calorie Wholly Guacamole snack packs are awesome. (what, I didn't take a lot of pictures this week)

 Tuesday: Since Patty and I will most likely run Scotia together (which is TERRIFYING because Patty is planning a 5:20/km pace, but hey, go big or go home.), we met up for 10k with 6k at race pace tempo. At 5 am. Dear god we are stupid. Felt decent enough, considering the 5 am thing, plus the fast 10k on Sunday. I'm not hugely confident that I can hold that kind of pace over 21.1, but I guess you never know until you try. Splits on the 6k tempo were 5:22, 5:28, 5:19, 5:24, 5:27, 5:16. Touch slow, but I blame the 5 am thing.

Should have done TRX and/or kettlebells, but I had a really stressful day and just was not feeling up to it at all.

Wednesday: This was a 'why the hell am I doing this' run. 4:30 in the morning is just too early, especially now that it's not hot anymore. I spent the first 20 minutes thinking about how utterly dumb it was that I got up that early to run. I'm never going to win a race, so what the hell is the point? By the end, though, I felt pretty good. I run because I love to run, and because I want to improve myself. No, I'll never win a race, but I know I can get better, and if that means running at 4:30 am, then that's what I'm going to do.

My faithful headphones completely disintegrated during this run. I guess almost 3 years of abuse was enough for them.

 Thursday: Track. But I wanted to run at lunch and the track at work is technically off limits (not sure how enforced that is - but to be honest, I have no interest in sharing a track with a bunch of varsity athletes). Hit up one of the local trails instead that I knew would give me an uninterrupted and flat 1k. First interval in 4:32, oops. I figured when I saw that number that I would pay for that one, and pay I did. Next three were 4:47, 4:56, 4:56, and then I couldn't finish the fifth repeat - did about 700m at a 4:55 pace and just could not go on. Oh well, it is what it is. Finished a total of 10k and it was overall a good workout.

Fall colour! Is it just me or are the leaves later than usual changing colour this year?

 Skipped strength work again for absolutely no good reason.

Friday: Rest day. Ate SO MUCH FOOD. Must be a peak week or something, I'm a hobbit having 3 breakfasts and still so hungry.

Original image credit.

Saturday: Long run with Patty. We agreed to take this one easy peasy lemon squeezy, since we both felt like we needed a confidence building long run instead of a sufferfest. It worked out really well, and we even did a few faster km at the end - not bad for 23k!

We amused ourselves through much of the run by spotting overdressed runners. Seriously, people, it was 12C - which is NOT THAT COLD. We were both in tank tops, and were comfortable with the temperature. Patty went with a skirt and I was in crops, but frankly should have gone skirt too (I wasn't overly hot in the crops, but the weather was such that a skirt would be been perfect). We kept seeing people in long sleeves, which I kind of get because it is September and we all can't wait to break out our Around the Bay shirts to show off our membership in that particular club, but jackets? long pants? tights? sweatshirts? Y'all be CRAZY.

It will look like this soon enough. As much as I'm getting bored of my summer gear, let's not rush into things here people. (Original image source)

 Sunday: Recovery run 8k. Legs had no interest in the recovery part - every time I glanced at my watch it read 5:3x or 5:4x. Since I seemed to be incapable of slowing down, I stopped a bunch of times to take pictures and keep things a little closer to 'recovery'.

A multi use trail is a such a good use of this powerline corridor. Beautiful spot to run, even if it does have a lot of stupid hills.

Weekly summary: 65.5 km run in 6:28:02. No weight training due to laziness.

One more hard week of training before tapering. Eep. This week features not just my first trail race, but also my first relay, which I am super crazy excited about! The main goal is not to get injured while doing it. And have a lot of fun with my team (Sam, Phil, and Kim).