Half marathon training – Week 7 – Up and down
Last week was a bit of an up and down week for me. The down occurred on Thursday morning I woke up to 2 inches on heavy wet snow on the ground. I had a 8 mile run on the schedule with 6 miles at a moderate tempo pace. After digging through my ski suitcase to find my neck warmer I made it outside and started warming up. I ran more than a mile before I saw anyone else on the Green Lake path! I started the tempo run but the ground was covered with slush and I just could not get into my tempo pace. After mile two I wimped out and canceled the tempo run. The conditions just weren’t appropriate for fast running and my heart just wasn’t in it. I did a total of 6 easy miles instead. This is the first scheduled run I haven’t completed in a really long time. I’m such a stickler for following my training plan that I get a bit upset when thing don’t got as planned. Even more frustrating was that if I’d just postponed my run the conditions would have been good enough to do it at lunch since the snow melted quickly.
On the plus side I had a really great weekend in Victoria. My Sunday long run was scheduled at 16 miles and I was a little nervous starting out. I knew I could do it but 16 miles is not a distance I take lightly. It’s the longest run of my training program so it sort of seemed like the peak of the program. Matt ran the first 8.2 miles with me on a hilly course. Then I did the last 7.8 on my own on much flatter terrain. I held up really well until about mile 14.5 and then I trudged it out to the end. I’m pretty happy with my endurance right now.
The half marathon is just less than three weeks away. I’m still dealing which some hamstring issues. It’s mostly just tightness/soreness after hard efforts but I’m going to try and spend a little extra time stretching them out over the next little while. I’m not sure if breaking 1:50 is in store for me but I definitely feel good about the effort I’m putting into my training.
| 23/02 | - | Rest day |
| 24/02 | 7.0 mi | Speedwork: 6x1200m in 8:15/8:21/8:16/8:17/8:15/8:13 (1:34) |
| 25/02 | XT | 55 min on elliptical plus weights |
| 26/02 | 6.0 mi | Easy run: (canceled tempo run) avg 168 bpm, 10:18 min/mile |
| 27/02 | - | Rest day |
| 28/02 | 4.0 mi | Recovery run: avg 164 bpm, 10:12 min/mile |
| 01/03 | 16.0 mi | Long run: avg 163 bpm, 10:58 min/mile |
| Total | 33.0 mi | YTD: 230.0 miles |