2 Weeks To Go!

Last week started off well, with an extended, not so slow Recovery Run on Monday.

This was followed by a Tempo Run on Wednesday that had me feeling better about my speed.

Thursday, I had planned on doing some yoga, but went 5 pin bowling instead.  Does this count as strength training?  My arms were actually a bit sore afterwards!

This brings us to Friday and I haven't had a chance to update my runs since then.  I was in Prince George for work and really wanted to do some intervals and work on speed some more after the Tempo run on Wednesday.  I hadn't really done any interval training since the fall, and had no idea what pace I should aim for.  I warmed up, nice and slow (aiming for 6:30/km) for ten minutes which took me to a nice long flat stretch of road with not much traffic.  My plan was just to run as fast as I could for 800m, then check my pace on that one, and aim for slightly slower in order to be able to maintain the same pace x6, with 2 minutes to recover in between.

It didn't work out exactly as I planned, but I was happy with the result:

Those first ten minutes ended up being 6:10/km, a little faster than planned, but still comfortable.  My pace, for the first 800m was 5:07/km, so I wanted to aim for 5:15-5:20/km for the rest, keeping in mind that I've been doing most of my running at 6:00-6:30/km pace for the past few months.

Interval 2 was at 5:00/km.  Oops.  Interval 3 was 5:13/km.  That seems more manageable.  Interval 4, I turned around and was heading straight into the wind, so imagine my surprise at 5:02/km, 5:05/km, 5:05/km on the return trip!

I changed my route on the way back and did a longer cool down to finish the run at 10.33 km in 58:16, an average pace of 5:39/km. 

I was happy with that run, and happy that it tired my legs out.  That was the whole point!  Since my long run on Saturday was only 20K, I wanted to have some practice with tired legs.


After work on Friday, the BF, his brother and I headed to Kamloops to visit their sister.  This meant that I had the luxury of a new route to try out on Saturday morning.  After a bit of online research, I drove to a park along the river and ran 10K out and 10K back along the Thompson River on mostly paved trail.

On this run, I had a little sun, a little rain, a lot of wind and even a couple of snow flakes.  I was trying out my race day outfit, and I think unless there's a call for a down pour, I've got it figured out.  There were lots of other people out on the trail, which made me feel safer running in an unknown area, but also annoying because I really had to pee for the first 7K and couldn't just hop off the trail to use the bushes without being caught!

On the way out I was feeling slow and sluggish.  I was definitely feeling the toll of speedwork the day before and our late night meal and second glass of wine when we arrived in Kamloops the night before.  Maybe French Toast wasn't the best choice for breakfast.  I was seriously contemplating changing my registration for the marathon to the half marathon at about kilometer 5, and this was while the sun was shining!

My original plan was to aim for about 6:30/km on the way out, and something closer to 6:00/km on the way back, but for the first 10K it was all I could do to just convince myself to keep going out in that direction for another kilometer, and another and another to get the distance in, and I really wasn't paying too much attention to my pace.

Kms 1-10:
5:59
5:54
5:59
6:01
6:01
6:04
6:08
6:23 (Gu)
6:02
6:06

At the turn around, I stopped.  I stretched.  I thought about walking back.  I even took my shoes off to check for blisters in case that would give me an excuse to walk back.  I'd been going faster than I planned, so instead of speeding up as planned, I slowed down for the next kilometer.

6:23.

Then I said to myself:  Self, you have 2 weeks until you run in the Vancouver Marathon.  This slowing down, feeling sorry for yourself nonsense is not going to help.  Pick it up.

And I did:

5:47
5:51
5:34
6:27 (Gu)
5:38
5:42
5:44
5:47
5:28

And I felt great!

I feel like I'm on a roll, and I just hope it continues for another 2 weeks!  Somehow, in my first week of taper, I ended up running more than I did the week before (due to that missed run on Friday and the extra kilometers on Monday).  Now it's time to taper for real!