For once, I’m glad to see that it’s Sunday night, because that means this week is over! Suffice it to say that this was not my favorite week of all time. I’ll hit the details in the training recap:

Monday: Scheduled rest, but I knew I wouldn’t have time to get in Tuesday’s double workouts, so my options were to lift on Monday or make Wednesday a double. I chose sleep Wednesday morning over rest Monday and hit the gym for 45 minutes of strength training.

Me, Wednesday morning. (source)

Tuesday: Intervals: 4×800 @ 5:00 pace with 400m recovery. With warm-up an cool-down, 7 miles total. I keep hoping these will start to feel easier, but this pace is still incredibly hard for me.

Wednesday: And here began the not-so-super part of my week. I had jury duty, for one. Though it didn’t start until 8:45, I didn’t run first  thing, because I thought surely I’d be out of there by 4:00, and since the courthouse is merely a mile from my house, I could get in my 6-mile easy run well before dark. And then, when we were given 1.5 hours for lunch, I was even more excited, because I could “runch” like all the cool bloggers I follow.

I was so excited, apparently, that I forgot I was driving in a school zone. And I got pulled over. And I got a ticket. And I no longer had time to run. I thought it was the universe punishing me for driving that one mile instead of walking, but when I left that morning, it was no degrees outside (seriously, zero). But I walked back to the courthouse, at least.

I still thought we’d be done by 4ish… but no. At 5:45, I was speed-walking home in the last fading remnants of daylight. Treadmill it was. And I didn’t even do core work when I was done, because I was starving. Fail.

Thursday: Annnd the failing continued. My stomach felt a little off when I woke up, but settled by lunchtime, so I ate. Bad choice. Shortly after school got out, I realized that I was sinking into sickland and needed to head home. But because I’m a moron, I still tried to run — on the treadmill, at least, so I could stop immediately if necessary. It was necessary. I made it 0.75 miles, retired to the couch, and called J, begging him to pick up saltines for me.

True story.

Friday: After being up most of Thursday night being sick, and still feeling awful Friday morning, I took my first-ever sick day from work (broke my almost seven-year streak). Obviously, I did not get in the scheduled strength workout. I did empty the dishwasher and take out the trash… and then I had to lie on the couch for an hour to recover. Awesome.

Saturday: Thank goodness, that was just one of those horrid 24-hour bugs. I slept nearly 10 hours Friday night and woke up Saturday feeling like a new person. I ate some oatmeal and still felt normal, so J and I ran some errands, and then I decided to try a run. I stayed on the treadmill so that, like on Thursday, I could stop immediately if I needed to. It was frigid and blowing snow out, so treadmilling wasn’t painful. Incredibly enough, I felt good. I really did not anticipate getting in my scheduled 10-miler, but I did. Around mile 9, I could really tell that I was fueled by only oatmeal and Friday’s saltines, and by the time I finished, I was in pretty dire need of calories, but otherwise I felt fine. Given that my focus as soon as I stepped off the treadmill was getting food, I spaced out the post-run stretch.

Sunday: I had a lot to do today to make up for Friday’s complete lack of productivity, so I just hopped on the treadmill when I woke up and cranked out the speed workout that was scheduled for Thursday: 2 x 2 miles at 10k pace and 2 x1 mile at 10k pace, all with 400m recoveries: 8 miles total with warm-up and cool-down. It felt SO GOOD to feel normal. Then, I did some core and stretching.

Totals: In all, I really only missed a strength workout and a recovery run, so things were not so bad as they seemed. I got in 31 miles, 45 minutes of strength training, and 15 minutes of stretching. Not bad for only 4 days of running, I suppose.

These jury duty and sick days messed up my non-workout schedule, too, so I apologize in advance for being gone from the blog world this coming week. My original plan was to stagger end-of-quarter assignments: my freshmen were to give (and turn in paper copies of) speeches on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday, giving me those three days and the weekend to get them graded before my sophomores turned in projects on Monday.

But now, everyone’s stuff is coming in on Monday (and probably Tuesday), and grades have to be in on Friday. Friday is a teacher work day, aside from a few hours of standardized test training (yay!), so that will help. Even so, I’ll be a grading fool during the evenings this week.

I drafted a couple of posts last night, so I should get those up at least, but I probably won’t have much time to comment on your blogs. Sorry. I’ll catch up on the weekend, I promise!

When was the last time you got sick? Are you a baby when you’re sick, too?

Ever served on a jury? I did, a couple of years ago. It was actually pretty interesting.