Bayshore Half Marathon Training: Week 3

One more week down, 11 more to go. You can read about the first 3 weeks here.

This is how things went down last week, pretty dang good if I do say so myself:

Week 3 | Completed

Monday started out with some "speed play" as I like to call it. Meaning I just do any type of speed work that strikes my fancy. This week I decided to put my running playlist (that needs some serious revamping..) on shuffle and warm up to the first song and then alternate fast and recovery every song until I reached 3 miles. The "fast" songs I did at 7.5, 8, and 8.5 mph respectively. Overall the workout took me 24:46 which is an 8:15 average pace.

Tuesday was 400s. I did 7 at 8.3 mph with half a mile warm up, quarter mile jog in between each 400 and three quarters of a mile cool down totally 4.5 miles. I did the jogs and warm up/cool down anywhere between 6.5 and 6.7 mph. The entire workout took 37:04 which is an 8:14 average pace.

Wednesday was 3 quick an easy miles before a yoga class. I just got on the t-mill and set it at 6.7 mph for the entire duration. The yoga class I went to is a 90 minute heated (~95*) flow. It's a pretty decent and fairly sweaty class.

Thursday was more speed (I think I do way too much speed atm... but everything else is just sooo boring on the treadmill). 3 tempo miles at 7.3 mph. The entire 5 miles took 42:34; avg pace: 8:31.

First Outside Run of the Season!

Friday.... I made it back outside! This was my first outside run since the Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving. We have had so much snow I haven't wanted to brave icy, snowy side walks. Friday was sunny and it was about 40* and sunny when I ran around 2pm. I decided to go to the civic center because they have a path around it that is just shy of a mile that they keep pretty clear.

I was aiming to run at about my half marathon goal pace which is currently 8:30... That didn't quite happen. As expected I went out quite fast and after the first mile I tried to slow down but I didn't want to drastically slow my pace. I ended up just doing what felt good. My time was 41:09; avg pace: 8:13. Which is actually faster than my official 5 mile PR from almost 2 and a half months ago. Interesting.

Saturday: rest, glorious rest.

Sunday was the first "not so hot" run. 9 miles on the treadmill. If I had planned ahead I could have run outside on Saturday when it wasn't raining but I partly just did not want to run on Saturday. I tried watching Mamma Mia on my iPad which was not a big enough distraction. At about 4.6 miles I decided I had to stop for a minute and just not be on the treadmill. I ate a Gu at this point even though I probably didn't need it, but better safe than sorry and crashing near the end.

I stopped again just shy of an hour and walked around off the treadmill for a minute before I got back on to finish it out. Once you hit an hour on my treadmill it doesn't tell you seconds anymore so I have to start the stopwatch on my phone so I can know the 'exact' time cause I'm crazy like that.

It seemed to take for.ev.er. but I did it. As seen about, total time: 1:20:44; avg pace: 8:58. I really don't need to be doing long runs this fast but a lot of it has to do with not wanting to be on the treadmill that long and it's easier to just set a pace and go for it. I hope to be able to do all my long runs from here on out outside where I will be able to go with what pace feels best at the time.

Here is a look ahead to what this week has in store:

Week 4 | Planned

Spoiler alert: It already isn't quite going as planned. But that is partially because I have decided to not double up on yoga and running this week. I am down at my favorite yoga studio for Monday and Tuesday and I think I am just going to enjoy that and not try to cram in runs on top of it.

Not sure how what I will do for runs, all I know is Saturday will most likely be a small 5k that I am hoping to crush my PR from well over 2 years ago... shouldn't be too hard and I am kind of super excited for a more accurate 5k PR. So this was supposed to be an easy week for because of that anyways.