CHICAGO MARATHON TRAINING WEEK 11

One day, I'll catch up. For now, here's Week 11 of Chicago Marathon training! 

SATURDAY // LONG RUN
20 MILES @ 9:40 MIN/MILE

Longest run EVER! 

I woke up at 5:20. Actually Joe woke me up. I forgot to set an alarm the night before. I got dressed, ate a Clif Bar + a glass of Gatorade + a cup of black tea, got all my long run essentials together (a 12 oz bottle of Gatorade, 3 Clif chews, $5.00, my phone + headphones for all the podcasts...) and left before the sun even rose. At this point I think the early Saturday morning door lady knows me because I'm always leaving when it's still dark to go running.

I headed north on the Lakefront path this week and stuck exclusively to the lakefront path. The first 10 miles felt really good. I also saw the most incredible sunrise. 

PS: I took that picture while running 6.2ish miles per hour!

Miles 11-18 were a little different. They felt good enough, but my knee felt a bit stiff. 

I'd even taped it before the run. It wasn't anything major, but it always stresses me out a little when my knee hurts because that was the bane of my existence for 3+ years. 

Once I got to Mile 17 I was super excited. My longest run prior to this run was 17 miles, so any additional mileage was a PR. 

In the final 2 miles, my knee hurt a bit more, but definitely not enough to stop, so I powered through. I don't know if it was all the running-induced hormones or that I kept thinking about how hard those 3 non-running years were, or how the Chicago Marathon was feeling more like a reality,  but I started to get choked up around Mile 18 for a little. 

Those final two hard miles were hard, but it's always easier for me to think about how little I have left in a long run rather than dwell on how I'm tired/stiff/thirsty/etc. 2 miles compared to 20 is so tiny!

And then I finished at my favorite spot to finish... the beach! 

I made it home and this happened. 

Then this pretty smoothie happened too! It's my new favorite recipe. So many tasty flavors and good post-run nutrition packed into one.

SUNDAY // RECOVERY RUN
6.2 MILES @ 9:32 MIN/MILE

I don't know why I felt it necessary to run this day, but I did. Probably because it was with Joe :D Or like 60% of it was. Joe said he'd run 3 miles with me and then I tricked him into running 3.6 miles with me. He didn't have a watch so I didn't tell him we hit 1.5 miles and then he asked at 1.8 miles and I was like LOL we're actually at 1.8 miles now. 

We ran back and then I added on another 2.5 miles. My knees hurt a bit and then I got home and did 16 minutes of wall sits (mostly in 2 minute increments).

WEDNESDAY
2 MILES + 3 x 1 MILE

This run... yikes. I ran back from work and then did the speed run workout I didn't do on Tuesday. 3 x 1 mile repeats at 5K pace. For the first repeat, I went completely off how I felt so didn't look at my watch. Not even once! (For the record, I never do that, but I know I should more.)

Mile 1 ended up being 7:52. The next two ended up being pretty consistent. Mile 2 was 7:50 and Mile 3 was 7:54. During Mile 3 I felt like I was going to die – I was seriously heaving and had to sit for a few minutes after it was over before walking home. I guess that means I kind of needed this workout though.

THURSDAY // COMMUTE HOME + TREADMILL HILLS
2.8 MILES


I ran 1.8 easy home from work, did a ton of one legged squats and unweighted deadlifts, and then ran 1 mile on the treadmill at a 10 min/mile pace. Except over that mile, I gained 316 feet. I think this was the hardest mile I ran all week.

After the quick gym session, my building was having a roof deck fiesta after so Joe and I went to the deck and grabbed margz and fajitas and didn't even have to worry about dinner/cleanup.

TOTAL // 34 MILES