This week's stats:
- 49 miles
- 10M with 6 x (3min on / 2 min off)
- 12.4M Medium Long Run
- 14.6M with 6 x (30s hard / 2:30 easy), 1M easy, 3M tempo 557/553/543
- 1 day off
- Weekend in Portland!
I approached this week with a bit of caution. Going into the second week of workouts since Chicago Marathon, I still had some doubts about whether or not I had allowed my body enough time to recover, or if doing workouts so soon was a good idea. After all, the marathon puts a lot of stress not only on your body, but also on your mind and soul. However, after last week, I really started to feel like my legs were getting back to normal and trusted that perhaps the 12 days off had really helped me recover faster than I normally do. In order to put my mind at ease, I decided to look back at what I've done the last 5 weeks post-Chicago:
- Week 1: Off, rock climbing 2x/week
- Week 2: 11M, 2 short runs, climbing 3x + lifting 2x
- Week 3: 44M, all easy + lifting & climbing 2x
- Week 4: 53M, 1 moderate workout + lifting 2x
- Week 5 (this week): 50M, 2 moderate workouts + lifting 2x
After looking at the raw numbers, I felt more confident in my plan to move forward with workouts, with the main caveat that I absolutely *must* listen to my body and hold back more than I normally would if I were later in a training cycle. I don't want to get a case of overtraining syndrome, and I trust that this approach will help prevent that from happening.
This week was a bit chaotic because I started the week off in Plano, where my hours are long and the schedule nonstop, and ended the week in Portland, where I ate lots of good food and ran very little. It was the perfect combination! While in Plano, I mustered the motivation to step out into the cold and wind, and battled the elements (and myself) for a fartlek around the Frito Lay employee path. I didn't have the right watch on, so I wasn't 100% sure of my pace, but I'm guessing it was around 5:30 pace. It certainly didn't feel easy, but coming off jetlag, I was really happy with it.
As soon as I arrived back in California, Jenna and I immediately got back into our routine of running miles while chatting away. We got in 90 minutes together on Thursday, and then another 15 or so on Friday, while helping Max and Howard with their marathon workout. It was great to have some company for the 30 second pickups during the run, and then I took off for a 3 mile tempo purely on feel. I didn't look at the paces, and just hoped I was running decently fast. I was pretty excited to see my splits after the run. I was really expecting that it would be much harder to run sub-6:00 pace for a tempo at this point.
With a holiday on Friday, I flew to Portland with Howard, Athena and Peter. While the weather certainly wasn't anything to write home about, the vibe in Portland always steals my heart and I feel compelled pack my stuff into my car and move to the Northwest. I just love the economic diversity, food truck scene and complete acceptance to be "green."
