Week 7 Training Recap

I hope everyone enjoyed the Labor Day holiday weekend! I didn't have anything special planned for the long weekend except to start feeling better and get my long run done on Sunday.  I am happy to report that as of Friday, my antibiotics finally kicked in and I truly started to feel better. The best I felt in weeks! I am amazed at just how bad I was feeling during the past three weeks and still managed to get all of my marathon training done. This year I told myself  "No Excuses" and I certainly plugged along during the past few weeks despite the nasty sinus infection. I am committed to making it to the starting line on November 4th.

It's hard to believe that the summer is over and I have been training for 7 weeks. The summer has flown by and I can only imagine just how fast the next 9 weeks will be. Anyway, Week 7 of training ended on Sunday and I have now entered the week where my total mileage will jump up an additional 6 mile. Usually it's just 2 mile increases, but this one is a big one and it frightens me just a tad because my long run this Sunday will be 16 miles. But alas, Sunday is still a few days away. I will continue to focus on one day at a time and will deal with Sunday when it comes.

So how did this past week go? Not too bad. I hooked myself up with Daily Mile the other week. I am finding its a great place to connect with other like minded individuals when it comes to running, cycling, etc. I can easily synch my runs from my Garmin to the site. What I also love is that you can easily see your exercise recap for the week. See your total mileage was for the week and a break out for each day. Total time spent exercising and calories burned. This is what mine looked like for last week:

Monday: 3 mile recovery run that I ended up doing at the gym during lunch. I was tired in the morning (ya know from that 14 miler on Sunday) and wanted a couple more hours sleep. This run was easy and done at a 10:40 pace.

Tuesday: 4 mile run at Astoria Park Track. Wasn't too bad even though I did it in the down pouring rain! I did an easy 1 mile warm-up, 2 miles of sprints and 1 mile recovery. Legs were dead after I was done. Also took myself to the doctor and got my antibiotics to treat a sinus infection. Yay!

Wednesday: Rest Day

Thursday: 5 mile run at Astoria Park Track. I struggled a bit with this run. My calves were aching (despite rocking the compression sleeves) for the first 3 miles and this was my first outside run wearing my new running shoes. I changed up the brand of shoes I had been wearing because I was dealing with some issues and these ones were to fix them. By the end of my run I was hating them! I vowed to give them 2 weeks and if I still hated them I was going to buy different one that I had tried on that was better than the original pair I was running in but not as perfect as this pair.

Friday: 6 mile run at Astoria Park Track. Can I say that this run was BEAUTIFUL! In 7 weeks this was the first run that just felt great. No aches. No pains. Everything clicked. I even fell in love with my new running shoes. I started this run with a 10:50 pace and with each passing mile I picked up speed. Mile 6 was done at a 10:13 pace. I was super happy! Think my meds finally kicked in by this day.

Saturday: Rest Day

Sunday: 10 mile Long Run at Rockefeller State Park Preserve. I showed you what my 14 miler looked like last week. Here is my 10 miler:

 

I used the map from Daily Mile so I could show you each mile mark so you get an idea of the direction I took. My Garmin map is nice but it won't show all the mile marks for my longer runs. 

Mile marks 1 and 2 have some serious hills. Let me just note that no matter where you run in this park you will encounter hills. Some are gentle as others are intense. So these first 2 miles have the most intense hills of my course. But what is nice about a big hill is that there is always a nice downhill. Miles 3 to 4 is where I recover from the first 2 hills. By the time I hit Swan Lake after mile 4 my legs are feeling pretty good and my pace picks up to a sub 11:00. After mile 5 I encounter another hill. It's a moderate hill that is out in the open from the tree cover and it is a long climb. Mile 6 is the beginning of a downhill recovery. I will loop back up around and then head over to another part of the part. Right after mile 7 I begin another long hill climb. It's not terrible in grade. Just long. A little bit after mile 8 I hit a nice down hill and the course flattens back out some with minor climbs to mile 9. About mile 9.5 you start another long climb back up to mile 10. Again it's not terrible but on tired legs it can feel like torture. For this run I hit my 10 mile mark right before I turned out of this portion of the park. I was thankful because the trek back up to where the parking lot is, is one serious long hill. This hill kicked my butt the last time I HAD to run up it. Unfortunately next week I will be running up it and then have to run another 4 miles after, but that's ok. I am working on my re-hydration plan for that day and know I will have to go by the car after that hill to refuel so I will take a moment to get what I need and recover and then take off to conquer the 16 miles.

So that's my Week 7 training in a nutshell!