Can't believe I'm on Week 7! Mostly because it's hard to believe that I've run consistent mileage for seven weeks straights after a three year long injury, but also because I'm not always the best at keeping up series on here.
SATURDAY // 7.5 MILES (1 MILE @ 9:25 MIN/MILE, 6.5 MILES @ 9:21 MIN/MILE)
SOLO WARM UP & THEN WITH NRC ON THE LAKEFRONT PATH
It was beautiful out, but this run was a tough one. It seemed like everyone in my NRC group thought so too. 80 degrees and sunny is nice, but for running it is HOT. A lot of people who were planning to go the full hour hopped over to the 30 minute group, and in the hourlong group, a few people ended up dropping off and walking part of the way back. I ended up hanging on until the end, but just barely. I was beet red and in need of a big glass of water and a cold shower when I finished.
SUNDAY // 7.2 MILES (6.2 MILES @ 9:01 MIN/MILE, 1 MILE @ 10:00 MIN/MILE)
SOLO ON THE LAKEFRONT PATH, FASTER 10K & A COOL DOWN
This run was soooo good. I headed out at 7:30 am and it was cooler and less crowded than on Saturday, and for that I was thankful. The first 3.1 miles were really comfortable (9:17 min/mile), although I didn't feel like I could go much faster. However, during the second 3.1 miles, I felt like I could run faster and ended up trucking all the way back (8:44 min/mile)! I feel like in most physical activities, the demographic I tend to keep pace with the most are the fit middle-aged guys. They were all out during this run! I kept playing leapfrog with a few nearly the entire time. I kind of made it a game for myself. (It's also probably the reason my second half was way faster...)
TUESDAY // 5.3 MILES (MORE ON PACE BELOW)
NRC SPEED RUN
I was so happy to make it to this week's speed run. I wasn't sure if I'd get out of work on time, but I did. As usual we started out with a warm up run down Michigan Avenue. Once we got to the lakefront we did drills.So. Many. Freaking. Drills.
High knees, followed by butt kicks, followed by lunges, followed by one type of skips, followed by another type of skips, followed by four rounds of strides, followed by probably six other things I'm forgetting. I hated it. But that's the kind of stuff that works other non-running muscles and helps prevent injuries so I guess I can't be too mad.
After all the drills, we finally settled into the speed run - four 1200m repeats alternating between 5K and 10K pace with speed "surges" at the end. I chose the slower of the two groups I'm in between because I've been increasing my mileage for the past few weeks.
My group's 5K pace was ~7:50 min/mile with the surge and our 10K pace was ~8:20 min/mile with the surge. I ended up finishing most of the reps towards the front, which made sense since I chose the slower group of the two that I'm pretty much right in the middle of. This workout made me realize that I need to get in some longer speed runs though. Maybe three 2000m repeats next time. The 1200m weren't easy by any means, but I think I could've done one or two more.
THURSDAY // 3.25 MILES (3 MILES AT 10:20 MIN/MILE, TWO 200M REPEATS)
SOLO ON THE TRACK
Recently I realized that some of my training runs should be way slower than I'm running them. Basically I should be running easy mileage around 10:30 min/mile pace based on my race times, but usually when I run easy mileage it's closer to 10:00 min/mile.So to practice, I went to the track after work on Thursday and tried to do three miles at a 10:30 min/mile pace. It was surprisingly hard and I kind of failed. I ran three miles, but I ended up averaging 10:20 min/mile. I had to actually turn off my music and switch to Pod Save America so I wasn't trying to keep rhythm with a song. After, I did two 200m strides and called it a day.
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