Monday, May 25, 2015

Charlevoix Half Training - Week 2

Note: While I am referring to this as half marathon training, this is actually the start of marathon training. It is just easier for me to break it up into smaller segments: 7 weeks until Charleviox Half Marathon, 8 weeks until Crim 10 miler, 8 weeks until Grand Rapids Marathon.

Monday
Supplemental training: Core + Strength Training

Tuesday
rest day (taken from Wednesday)

Midway through work, my husband texted me to let me know that our friends from Duluth, MN were in town for the day and wanted to know if we wanted to meet up for drinks. Which, of course, yes! So that ruined my plans for an after work eight miler. Can't complain too much since they are going to let us stay with them when we run Grandma's Marathon in 2017 (we are planning on crossing New York and Oregon off of our list in 2016, so Minnesota will have to wait).

Wednesday
Distance: 8.03
Pace: 9:17 average pace with 10 strides
Supplemental training: Flexibility 

Wow, this run sucked. My legs felt like lead the entire run, my headphones refused to stay in my ears, and my allergies made it difficult to breathe. Bleh. I was so glad when this run was finished.

Thursday
Distance: 10.0
Pace: 8:53

I was prepared for this run to be a miserable continuation of Wednesday's run, but it actually ended up feeling great! I'm not sure how my legs felt better after an 8 mile run than they felt after 2 rest days, but they did.

Friday
Supplemental training: core

Saturday
Distance: 5.0
Pace: 10:03
Supplemental Training: Flexibility 

Sunday
Distance: 13.1
Pace: 9:00

This was my first run ever with a GPS watch. Since the Garmin 220 can now be had for just $175, I couldn't resist. So now I can look at the mile splits for this run and think, what the hell is up with my pacing!? Which, really, it isn't so bad. Most of the weirdness can be explained away with water stops, steep hill climbs, etc.

The last 3.1 miles of the run I picked the pace up: 8:33, 8:24, 8:00, 7:48 (0.1). It feels good to know that I can get the pace down to actual half marathon pace at the end of a 13.1 training run.

Totals
Distance: 36.13
Speed work: strides + fast finish long run
Supplemental Training: 2 flex, 2 core, 1 strength

I feel really good about this week. I was able to move Tuesday's run to Wednesday without creating any issues. I picked up a second day of core work without any issues. The only workout that didn't go quite as planned was Sunday's long run.

I was supposed to do 13 miles with 8 at marathon pace. However, I still am not quite sure which pace to use for MP and I didn't want my first run with my Garmin to be spent getting yelled at by my watch for running too slow. So I ran by feel and let myself pick up the pace whenever I wanted. I actually had 6 miles that were sub 9:00 and another 2 miles that were just a touch over. So probably close enough.

4 comments:

  1. Great job on the 13.1 mile run... especially the negative splits and getting down to race pace! I know that's a big confidence booster!

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    1. Thanks Kristina! I'm feeling pretty confident about my ability to grab a new half PR in a few weeks.

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  2. Getting a new Garmin is exciting!! I'm glad you had a good run after your not so great one. That always seems to happen!

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  3. I can't believe you have never run with a Garmin before! Congrats on your new one but yes, they can get addicting...

    When I trained for my first marathon last year, I was never sure what to do for MP either (I always thought it was weird that the plan said I shouldn't have a time goal yet also told me to do workouts at goal marathon pace. Umm..?). If you don't have a time goal but still want a goal pace, my recommendation would be to take your half time, multiply by two and add 10-12 minutes. Assuming you run, say, a 1:44 at Charlevoix, that would put you at right around 3:40ish or an 8:24 pace. This actually ended up being dead on for me: my half PR at the time was 1:55 and I ran a 4:02 in the marathon.

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