Another week closer to the half-marathon! This was a rough week of training since I was in Chicago for 3 days of it and ran here in Minneapolis for 3. I had done the research and found a park right next to the hotel, but the weather wasn’t cooperative and I was forced to run on the treadmill at the hotel. In short, that made my legs start hurting again and wasn’t exactly easy for speed work. Here it is in more detail:

Monday – 4×1600 meters at 10K pace with 800 rest. This was quite the morning. I had to get the run in before my flight to Chicago, so I set off down the Midtown Greenway and was just going to us my Garmin for the split times. Everything went great – it was cold and I was running pretty well for the conditions. When it was time to turn around and head home I thought, oh let me check out this other trail – it should connect to a familiar road and I can get back to the Greenway. I never saw any of the roads I expected and pretty soon I saw I-394 which is not close to where I was supposed to be. I ended up downtown Minneapolis on the Kenilworth Trail – having no clue where I was (I’m still not familiar with downtown). I managed to get headed in the right direction and ended up running through Nicollet Mall with snow falling. This would have been beautiful and perfect if I had planned it that way! I returned home 2 miles extra cold, but I did finish the work out and get to the plane in time. Here are my 1600 splits: 6:21, 6:48, 6:54, and 7:06. The total workout was 9.62 miles in 1:18:20 – this included 800 meter recoveries and warmup and cooldown. My 10K pace goal is 6:26 so these splits were a little off.

Tuesday – 6 easy 5 accelerations. I rode the bike today, continuing to do a little cross-training on my easy days. I rode 11 miles in 45 minutes at the hotel.

Wendsday – 7 x 800 meter repeats at 5 seconds per mile faster than 5K pace. Jog for 400 meters between repeats. Run 6 x 400 meter repeats at 20 seconds per mile faster than 5K pace. Jog for 400 meters between repeats. I hate running on treadmills but was stuck doing so at the hotel due to the bad weather. I did my warm-up and tried doing the workout, I’m not really sure what it actually was but I couldn’t handle it. I think it might be the fact that the treadmill keeps going at the pace unless you manually slow it down instead of your body naturally slowing down. I pathetically only completed one of the total 13 intervals while I attempted 2 more. I ran the first 800 in 2:34 right on pace, then the next 700 in 2:18, and finally 400 in 1:21. The total workout was only 2.9 miles in 21:13. I know the first interval wiped me out and my legs were starting to hurt.

Thursday – 6 easy 5 accelerations. Another treadmill day, I was really hoping to get outside but the weather was still bad in the pre-dawn morning. I did 3 miles in 22 minutes. That may have been a little fast for a “recovery” day and my legs were really hurting again.

Friday – 4 easy 5 accelerations. Back home again, I spiced things up and ran from my house to Powderhorn Park and around the park 2x’s. It was snowy with snow cover so this was definitely an easy pace. I incorporated the accelerations into the end of the run, trying not to slip on the ice! 4 miles in 34:32.

Saturday – 45 minutes at 15 seconds slower than 10K pace. Another day on the Midtown Greenway. I ran East until I hit the Mississippi River (I didn’t run on the river this time!) I ran for 45 minutes, I used the lap feature on the Garmin so that I would do a warm-up and then run 45 minutes, but didn’t realize until later that the time never changed even though it did mark the lap – weird. So my total run was 45 minutes with 35 of that being at a faster pace. My overall run was 6.1 miles in 46:04 – and 5.1 miles in 37:41 (7:24) so way off the pace.

Sunday – Rest. YES!

Total Miles: 25.6 Miles and 11 Miles Biking. For a total of 4 hours and 7 minutes of activity!

I need to refocus this week, despite the cold and conditions and keep up the effort and hopefully hit some of the pace targets! I have also found some mathematical flaws in how I was calculating my paces for different intervals, that should help too! How was your training this week? Any thoughts or advice for me?

[tags] Half-Marathon, Training, [/tags]

If you follow this blog then you know what I ran each day since it is posted at the bottom of each blog post. But here I want to compare the training plan with what I actually did! I am training for the Earth Day Half-Marathon.

Monday: A 45-minute fartlek run with 1 minute hard and 5 minutes steady, after a warm-up. I warmed up for 10 minutes and then did 4 1 minute surges with 5 minutes steady/recovery running. My total workout was only42 minutes, I didn’t feel like tacking on another 3 minutes by circling the block endlessly! I ran 5.3 miles along the Midtown Greenway.

Tuesday: 6 miles easy with 5 accelerations. I only did 3 miles at the YWCA Indoor Track (6 laps per mile) in 22:44 with my 5 accelerations. I was going to hit the bike for awhile to make up the difference, but none were available. I have been having some leg pains and have been doing lots of walking. I’m adjusting my casual shoes around and hopefully that will help.

Wednesday: 6×800 5 seconds faster than 5K pace. I did this workout at the YWCA Indoor Track again. I warmed up for 10 minutes, stretched and then started the intervals. I completed all 6 and their 4oo meter recoveries for an overall workout mileage of 6.33 miles and total time of 48:34. My 5K Pace is 6:16, so my 800 needed to be around 3:10. (I think my math is a little off, so I’ll adjust next week!) Here are my splits: 2:54, 3:11,3:09,3:12,3:03,3:01. I was happy with the workout, except the track is a little rough on my knees – due to the tight turns.

Thursday:5 easy 4 accelerations. I took a cross-training day today and did 16.5 miles easy on the bike for an hour workout. Everything felt fine until I went and did my 5 accelerations on the indoor track.

Friday: 4 miles easy, 5 accelerations. I took advantage of the heat wave and ran outdoors in 26 degree temps for 4.5 miles in a time of 36:40. I ran along the Midtown Greenway and it felt pretty good. I did 4 accelerations (since I accidentally did 5 Thursday) towards the end of the run.

Saturday: 8 miles – 6 easy 2 at goal pace. The six was pretty easy! I ran out for 4 miles on the Midtown Greenway which took me to the East end of the Greenway and then up one mile alongside the Mississippi River (very pretty). I caught myself looking down at the river and almost falling on ice or snow at the edge of the sidewalk. I turned around at 4 miles and came back. I went through 6 at 47:35 (7:56) a nice easy pace. I hit my watch wanting to be able to see what the splits were for the last 2 – well I don’t know my Garmin well enough yet and hit the start/stop button instead of the lap. I didn’t realize my mistake until I had gone almost a mile. I had looked at the pace function a few times to make sure I was on pace, but didn’t notice that the time wasn’t moving. Luckily, I was doing an out and back so I knew it was an 8 mile course. I knew that the Garmin actually calculates time from when you hit the start button until you reset it. So as soon as I finished I hit stop and reset the stopwatch. When I got home I synched the Garmin for the weeks data I was able to pull over the overall run time which is 1:01:34. Using my excellent math skills I deduced that my 2 mile time was 13:59 (7:00). This was 16 total seconds off my goal pace of 6:52 miles. It was a pretty good run, most of the 4 miles home were into the wind. Hopefully I learned my mistake about the watch buttons!

Sunday: Rest. Yup I did that!!

Total Miles: Ran 27.1 miles Biked 16 miles.

[tags] Half-Marathon, Training, [/tags]