The Next Seventeen Weeks (and Week in Review #1)

I have been avoiding the blog world for awhile now. Sometimes I just don't know how to type all I'm thinking, there's a huge disconnect between the brain and the keyboard. I have three race reports to still type. I could just let them go but I do like to reread them when running races of equal distance, to remember how I fueled, how the race went, etc.

I've begun my next training cycle for my fall marathon.  It's early fall. I'm registered to run the Wineglass Marathon in October.  I've not yet had what I would call a good training cycle for a marathon. My two marathons have had injuries and then this last cycle, I let the weather and other things get in the way of proper training, which is why I downgraded from a full marathon the marathon relay. The race recap for that will be coming soon!

So I'm really hoping this will be a good training cycle. I finished June's schedule at the end of May and this week, I finally finished the rough outline for the entire training cycle.

This was my first week of my extended cycle. The long run is my biggest weakness and starting training early gives me a chance to do multiple weeks of the same LR distance. My first long run went really well and this weeks was one I survived.

Week In Review

Saturday June 4th ~ 13 miles

This was a good run. I normally run my long runs on the flatter roads and through town because I want them to be a "successful" run.  Rarely do I feel like my long runs are successful so I decided to run it on the hilly back roads around my house.  It was one of my best longs runs that I've had. I stopped and took way too many pictures but enjoyed every moment of the run, even when I was gasping up the hills.

This little guy greeted me at the beginning of my run

As I headed out the door at 6am, nature decided to harass me at various points of the run. I was almost hit by 2 robins fighting and flying straight for me, then a few miles later, a deer bolted out of the woods and almost ran into me. The scariest encounter yet was a squirrel, that I'm pretty sure was rabid, showing up on the side of the road. It sat there, barely able to hold itself up, looking nasty and mangy, wobbling side to side like a drunk. I had a pretty formidable hill in front of me and I knew I wouldn't be able to bolt up it if this psychotic looking squirrel decided to charge me.  I have no idea how I ran by it without tripping because I watched it more than the road.  I must have looked back 20 times as I went up that hill, sure that it somehow got up the energy to chase me and possible slaughter me on this back road.  The poor thing was in the middle of the road, just going in stumbling circles, over and over.  I was so grateful to put that critter behind me.

The fog on the hill and the pond were so pretty. 

I wish the picture reflected the hill, especially the one way in the distance.
The biggest downfall of these roads is that there is zero shoulder.

I love this barn

Oh my word, this hill doesn't look nearly as steep but it tried to kill me.
My favorite part of a hill is getting to the top,
turning around and seeing where I'd just conquered. 

The hill across from my daughters school.  

Monday June 6th

My Musician and I decided we wanted to run together but Tink didn't feel 100% so we ran in front of our house. We live on a hill and there's a straightway of a quarter mile. Quarter mile down the hill, quarter mile up a hill.  I wanted to run three miles but only could suffer through 2 miles of it. My Musician kept me moving and motivated. It was fun running the hills with him.

I found a website to figure out the Grade %.  This hill is 8.5% grade.
No wonder I always feel like I'm dying when I run this hill.

Wednesday, June 8th

Track run. I haven't done a speed workout in months. This one felt fairly easy but I'm not sure how many more laps I could have done. I did a ladder workout 200, 400, 600, 800, 600, 400, 200.  It felt so good to running those paces again! 

Friday, June 10th

Tempo run. I started the run thinking I would just run 6 easy miles. I got to the park, ran my first mile at 10:31 and felt really good. I decided then to do a progressive tempo. The next three miles were 10:18, 9:09, 8:34 with a recovery mile of 10:37.  It was a gorgeous day for a run and wish I could have actually run a bunch more miles but I knew I had my long run the next day. 

Pano of Corporate Drive, you can see Rt 81 right before the hill. 

This was a light running week. I know as the weeks go by this is going to get more intense. I remember last summer, sitting on the edge of my bed at 5 am wishing I could sleep in like normal people.  I'm actually looking forward to those days.  As My Musician would say about me, "I am a marathoner, I must run".