Tag Archives: hills

Training, Uncategorized

Colorado Fall Classic Marathon Training: Week 3

8 Comments

Another week of training is in the books! I call this week “The Week of Thunderstorms and Denver Trips.” I am sick of the rain and wishing I-76 was a little shorter, but otherwise, it was not a bad week. Here’s how the training happened:

Monday:
AM: 12.3 miles of hills. I also made two new friends — a couple of dogs who decided that we were BFFs and should run together. They ran with me for about 4 miles — in spite of my constant, “GO HOME, DOGS!” and the glares from drivers who I’m sure were wondering why the heck “my dogs” weren’t on a leash.
Also, though I’ve had major trail envy lately, this run reminded me that the plains can be pretty, too.
photo (7)

PM: 45 minutes of full-body strength training

Tuesday:
AM: 12.5 miles. I should have gotten up just a little bit earlier, as I was supposed to run 14 and ran out of time… although I probably should have just done it, since none of my students feel the need to show up on time. Grumble grumble.

PM: Core, stretching, and foam rolling. Blah.

Wednesday:
AM: 4 recovery miles, followed by core, stretching, and foam rolling

PM: The foiled trail run I talked about in Thursday’s post. Whomp whomp.

Thursday:
AM: 10 miles with 5 at tempo. Why are tempo runs always so hard? Theoretically, I was running at half-marathon pace… and yet I felt like death after 5 miles. Explain that, please.

PM: 45 minutes full-body strength, plus a short bike ride with the hubby

Friday: 
AM: 5 recovery miles. My watch was completely dead, so I ran “naked,” and it was kinda nice.  I should do that more often.
photo 1 (4)Later, I did a quick core workout in the midst of cleaning my house. I’m cool.

Saturday:
18 miles. It was supposed to be 18 miles with 10 at goal pace, but I had a tough time hitting the pace. I was not happy.
photo 2 (5)It was hot, but not that hot, and humid, but not that humid (especially compared to what you Southerners/East Coasters deal with), so I don’t know what the deal was. I’m hoping it was just a crummy run, and I’m not ready to adjust my goals just yet… but I hope the next goal pace run gets a little easier!

Also, after six marathons fueled by GU, my stomach has suddenly decided that it hates GU. So I also spent half the run trying to keep the GU down. Not cool, body.

We spent the rest of Saturday walking around the Denver Botanical Gardens with my family. That was considerably less painful and more fun than my run.
photo (6)Holy cow, I look like my mom in that picture.

Sunday: 
Rest. I did 35 minutes of yoga to try to loosen up my stupid-tight legs and my workout for the Lyons Share Ab Challenge, but that was it. And I went to Denver again, this time for brunch with my girlfriends. I didn’t take any pictures because I was busy getting caught up on their lives.

Totals: 62.8 miles, 2.5 or so hours strength/stretch

And that’s that. This week is a bit of a cutback, so that should be nice.

How did your week go?

Training, Uncategorized

Colorado Fall Classic Marathon Training: Week 1 (Actually)

9 Comments

The week before we left on vacation, I titled my weekly workout recap post “Week 1 (Sorta),” because I didn’t want to “officially” start training until after vacation, so this one is “Week 1 (Actually).” It was a tough week — the first time I’ve topped 60 miles since October — but a great one. I had some solid training runs and some beautiful training runs with pretty flowers, so it was a win, all around.
photo 5

Monday:

AM: 11. miles easy

PM: 45ish minutes full-body strength, along with Greg McMillan’s Runner’s Core workout. I was at the gym for more than an hour, but I spent at least 15 minutes jabbering and not working out, since I’d been on gym hiatus for couple of months and had people to catch up with.

Tuesday:

AM: 13.1-mile hill run…although it’s four miles from my house to the hills, so it was more like a 5-mile hill run sandwiched between 8 miles of flat. I’m going to have to start driving or biking out there for hill runs. It was a beautiful morning, either way, and the top of my favorite/least favorite hill has a pretty view:
photo (3)I need to find out who owns this property so I can get permission to run out there.

PM: 30ish minutes of core and stretching. Having The Bachelorette back makes it easier to make myself do these things. I tell myself I can only watch trashy TV if I’m also stretching and/or doing core.

Wednesday (National Running Day)

AM: 5.2 recovery miles. J rode his bike as I ran, which I loved. We need to find a better route, though; this isn’t exactly a bike-friendly town, so I think we’ll have to stick to the park when he comes along.
photo 1PM: Basically the exact same as Tuesday.

Thursday: 

AM: 9 miles with 4 at tempo. Tempo runs are always hard for me, and I was tired, sore (still, from Monday… clearly it had been a while since I’d lifted), and hot. I told myself to run what felt like tempo pace and not focus on the actual pace. I was pleased, when I did check, to see that I was hitting the right pace. So that was good.

PM: 45 minutes of full-body strength and McMillan core again.

Friday

Friday was my favorite running day ever. Maybe that’s an exaggeration, but not by much. J had meetings in Denver (he’s kind of a big deal), and we figured there was no sense in letting the other half of his paid-for king-size hotel bed go to waste. So I left home bright and early and drove down to Green Mountain in Lakewood. I wonder why they named it that.
photo 3I got in some solid trail running, which I desperately need before the Chase the Moon relay in July, and some good downhill training to prep for my marathon in September. I wanted to just go forever, but I made myself stop at 6.2 so I wouldn’t be too sore for Saturday’s long run. And I took a selfie, because that’s what bloggers do, right?
photo 4

Then, I found J and borrowed his hotel key, cleaned up, and went to Athleta and bought some new shorts with a gift card I’d had since Christmas. It was pretty much the best day ever.

Saturday

I was excited to do my long run in Denver and get a change of scenery. Since J needed to check out of the hotel before his meeting started (i.e. before I was done running), I drove to my brother’s house and ran from there. He lives by a lake, so I did a couple of lake laps, then hopped on the Platte River Trail, which goes through downtown Denver. I didn’t take any pictures because I was too lazy to dig my phone of its pocket on my Camelback. I am a good blogger, remember?  You can go look at Amy’s blog; she lives near my brother and runs around that lake all the time. And she is a better blogger than I am, so she has pictures. Too bad she was running Ragnar Snowmass this weekend, or we could’ve run together.

Anyway, I ran 17 miles (it was supposed to be 16, but math is hard), then went to brunch with my brother, which was nice. I’m not sure why, but that 17-miler really took it out of me. I was beat. I guess it was a combo of the high-mileage week, the trails and mediocre sleep Friday, and the slowness of the brunch restaurant, which made me miss that 45-minute refueling window by a long shot (but they comped one of our meals, so it wasn’t all bad).

Sunday

30 minutes easy yoga. It felt amazing on my tight hips.

Totals: 61.6 miles running, 3ish hours strength/stretch/yoga

So overall, not a bad week at all. It feels good to be training hard again!

How was your week? Are you training for anything right now?

Do you ever get to tag along with your spouse on work-related trips? What do you do while he/she is working?