[S]he Conquers Who Endures

5 easy miles to loosen up the ole legs, 8:59 min/mi AP. I ended feeling loosey goosey and stoked about last night's workout. :)

Long run in FL. It is so nice to be able to finally get a run in with zero worry of ice on my route!! I wanted to continue my "hilly" long run routine, in FL this can be somewhat challenging. I mapped out a route that consisted of one relatively flat mile followed by one mile of the Ringling Bridge - a 65 ft climb over half a mile. I ran this out and back back and forth until I reached 20 miles! To make matters more interesting, there was a consistently strong wind. Regardless, I PRed for this 20 miler training run! I wasn't planning on hitting the paces I reached - 7:51 min/mi AP. My pace kept getting faster and faster throughout the run, my last 5 miles were in: 7:40, 7:33, 7:38, 7:46, and 7:24. My performance is drastically improving again. Consistent, hard work surely pays off!

Estimated total elevation gain: 700+ ft 

5 beautiful recovery miles in FL on an amazing hard packed shell trail. Nothing like soaking up the sunshine, loosening up the tight muscles, and breathing in the salty air after a hard run the day before. AP 8:59 min/mi.

Threshold run on the treadmill at 1% incline on hardly any sleep from traveling all weekend! I was pretty worried about this one, I had a grand total of 1.5 h sleep before the 20 miler I crushed on Sat., Sun maybe has 7 h (big improvement), then another 6 h of sleep last night. Not the best for training, but I can get caught up this week. Thank goodness it also happens to be cut back week for me!

I hit 7:03 min/mi AP for 5.25 miles! This is a PR for me. I really wanted to hit 6:57 pace for 5 miles, but thought it would be better not to push it so I just kept the treadmill at 8.5 MPH. I finished feeling strong and pretty confident I could have hit sub 7 for 5 miles. 

Finished up with some weights. The rest of my training goal for the day is to cut out of work early and go to bed!!! 

AM: beautiful sunrise easy run along the St. Charles River. My legs felt pretty good from the start. The birds were chirping, the air was crisp, the streets were quiet the only un-zen thing about my run were my Boost moon shoes which make me feel like tigger. I must say, they feel pretty sweet on recovery runs! :) 8:45 min/mi AP.

PM: 4 easy miles on the treadmill at 1% incline set to 8:41 min/mi pace with 10x0.1 mile strides at 6:00 min/mi pace. Well, the last one was a 0.2 mile stride just because. :)

I pushed my limits today! I've been itching to try this "endless" hill workout at a steep incline on the treadmill since January. I finally felt ready for it and after my hilly 20 on Saturday, I decided now would be a perfect time to get some hillwork in while giving my legs a break from the downhill. I warmed up at 8:31 min/mi pace 1%-1.5%-2.0% incline for 2 miles, then jacked up the incline to 5% for 4 miles and kept it at 8:31 min/mi! It was so hard at the beginning and I thought about changing the workout to 2x2 miles incline, but as soon as I hit 2 miles, I realized it felt just as bad as the first 0.25 mile and no worse so why not try 3 miles. I hit 3 miles, then decided I couldn't stop there with less than a mile to go so finished the planned workout!! I dialed down to 0.0% incline at 7:53 min/mi pace and took an easy downhill for 2 miles. 

This was a big workout for me. Big Sur has a 4.5% incline over 2 miles. Although I've promised myself not to "race" Big Sur, I do want to get into the best shape possible to enjoy the run and recovery quickly. Plus, I really want to hit a big marathon PR in Oct so why not start working on that now?!

Total climb: 1214 ft 

Track workout. 6x1200m repeats with 600m recoveries. I'm really loving track. I can really feel my improvement each workout, it sure feels grand! My splits were: 4:55.3 (6:35 min/mi), 4:51.2 (6:30 min/mi), 4:50.7 (6:30 min/mi), 4:52.5 (6:32 min/mi), 4:53.5 (6:34 min/mi), 4:50.2 (6:28 min/mi) for an AP of 6:31 min/mi. My last round was with a faster guy who was just trying to get extra mileage in. My crew was done with the workout after 5 sets. I had one more in me. Random dude asks my pace, I tell him, he keeps it pretty consistent the first 3 laps, the last 3 he picked it up. I only had 3 laps left, I can't let random dude shake me. At the end of the last lap we were flying according to my standards, I flipped it to 5th gear and felt really strong. Last lap was 6:10 min/mi pace. I'm beginning to think I'm holding back in my track workouts! Time to step it up a notch.

Easy run on the treadmill at  1-1.5% incline, 8:41 min/mi pace. My entire body felt really, really good after last night's track workout. I'm paranoid about this minor shin pain, but so far it's very mild and did not hurt at all during track surprisingly. I'm going to keep on top of it with ice, inflammatory Rx patch, compression sleeve and sticking to a flat shorter long run this weekend.

I wish my weirdo calves could stand to run in compression sleeves/socks!! I think I have big veins. I should measure them after a hard run. I bet those suckers go from a dainty 13" to 20" pythons during a run!

Solo, windy long run dodging black ice and snow piles. I chose an easy course for this one because of the shin pain I started experiencing this week. Well, I'm happy to report I had 0 shin pain!! I don't really know my pace until I get a mile out because of the GPS. I hit 8:23 the first mile, which is usually inaccurate because of lost signal, I kept the same effort and hit mile 2 at 7:45. Whoops! Oh who cares. I have no idea what my long run pace is anymore after running the last 4 long runs on hills. AP for 16 miles was 7:54 min/mi. Luckily, I still have no idea what my long run pace is. Half of this run was in a pretty heafty, relentless head wind. Actually, it sucked, but I welcomed it. If I can't run hills, I don't mind a little wind resistance to make me stronger!!

Despite the wind, it was a gorgeous day out. So I took a 4 mile walk into Boston, returned the Flyknit (I blame them for my shin pain) and the Lunar Racers. Both are too stiff and have hard cushioning under the heel. I'm desperately searching for a good racing shoe for short distances, so I picked me up some Saucony Type A5 (after trying them on this time). My feet were flailing when I tested them so they must be good. :) 

Easy 5 mile run along the St. Charles River. 8:47 min/mi AP. It's funny how one run can completely tear up your legs, then the next run resets all the aches and pains. Love it!

Schedule called for 35:00 to 40:00 threshold run. Naturally, I was targeting 40:00. My old partner in crime running friend in Chicago who is running the Shamrock 8k with me hit 4 miles at 6:54 min/mi pace. So naturally, I had to drop my pace to 6:53 min/mi pace. I started on the treadmill at 1% incline at 8:41 min/mi pace for 2.5 miles. Then, I was off at 6:53 min/mi pace. It was hard, but not as hard as I thought! I got 2 miles in, and tried to focus on just hitting a 5k. My fastest 5k is a 6:57 min/mi pace. I hit that! Then decided I just had to make it to 4 miles, I can't let my friend show me up! I hit 4 miles, then decided I just needed to get to hit 4.97 miles which would be my target race distance at my target pace! Hit it, 35:00 passed and I decided to stick with my original goal of 40:00, and I did!! 5.85 miles at sub 7 AP!! Yeah, it was the treadmill, so it will probably be harder outside, but I still have time and I'm sure I will race faster with my adrenaline going. 

I must say, it's true, sub 7 is just a number! This was hard, but not too hard. I think more than anything this pace is more of a mental challenge with me. Last year I entered sub 8 pace for a lot of my runs and by the end of the year I hit 20 miles sub 8. Many people stop there, I think because the number is so daunting. I don't want to stop there! After today's workout I think it is more realistic for me to commit to targeting a 1:30 half marathon in July!! 

12 mile run on the treadmill at 1% incline. I wanted to lay off the hills this week, so I decided to work on my stamina for this run, while staying slightly above my LT. 2 mile warmup at 8:41 min/mi pace, then 4 miles at a hopeful current MP (7:35 min/mi). Then reset the tm to go into my second round, and turned the last 4 miles into a progression run to finish at a hopeful current HMP increasing the speed 0.1 MPH (7:30, 7:24, 7:19, 7:14). Finished with 2 mile cool down at 8:27 min/mi pace in my A5s to practice getting used to them. AP for the 8 miles was 7:28 min/mi, a PR by far for me. 

I think this was a great workout for me. These paces have been no man's land for me because of running hills so much. It felt really good even though I had a strong effort yesterday and I'm happy to say I am finally sore in my muscles at the top of my quads!!! To me, that means my gait change is working (slight forward lean) and my hamstrings aren't being overly taxed. Finished up with some good stretching and pushups and planks since that's what all the fast kids do on here, and I want to be a fast kid too! :) 

AM: Nice and easy morning run. My muscles are a little sore from the last couple days, it feels really nice! The river was gorgeous and so was the weather, although I was a little bummed I couldn't find any marathon banners along the river - I heard they were put up yesterday, Boston runners get stoked! I tried to focus on my form in my new Kinvaras. Towards the end of the run I got into a good groove of forefoot/midfoot striking. My last mile was probably a little too fast (8:15) but I blame the shoes cause the effort wasn't there. AP 8:48 min/mi.

PM: 4 easy miles on the treadmill at 1% incline with 5x0.1 mile strides, 8:41 min/mi pace for the majority of the run. Strides were 6:00 min/mi pace. 8:41 min/mi pace felt so slow and I kept running into the handle bars. I was happy to hit the strides and stretch out my legs. Strides were really weird at first in these super light shoes, but when I felt more comfortable I realized it didn't feel so much like a 6:00 min/mi pace!!

Track workout on the treadmill (1% incline)!!! I have to miss track tonight because I'm flying to Chicago to see my fiance!!! My advisor okayed me to work Friday/Monday from Chi town. :) It was nice to not have anxiety all day for this workout (like every Thursday, hehe)! Workout called for 3-4x(1000m @ 5k pace + 600m at HMP) with 800m recovery. I hit 4 repeats and had gas left in the tank. The 1000m's were at 6:18 min/mi pace, the 600m's were at 7:18 min/mi pace. Neither of these times seem like realistic race paces for me just based on the number, but this workout honestly wasn't so bad. Maybe because the treadmill is easier? I was really surprised by the 600s, I thought I was recovering and caught myself a couple times from trying to go into the next repeat!! Haha. My 800m PR is a 6:19 min/mi pace (on track though) so that's pretty snazzy I beat that 4 times today at a longer distance. Oh and these lengths are super awkward on the tm, I had to print out a cheat sheet!! :)

Finished up with some PT/strength/core exercises, and made my modified gluten free recovery drink!!! Half a scoop of gluten free protein powder + 2 honey stingers = Endurox but gluten free. :) 

6 easy, wonderfully amazing miles in my old stomping ground - Chicago lakefront. It was pretty surreal to run the path again. I purposely left my ipod at home so I could truly soak it all in. I didn't pay too much attention to my pace, just went by effort and distance. It was lovely people watching and staring at the skyline and lake. Before I knew it, my recovery run was over, my legs have never felt better, and my watch claims I was averaging an 8:31 min/mi pace. Love the run.

18 mile long run on the Chicago lakefront with my old training partner! We were planning a more conservative pace (8:30s min/mi) and then planned on kicking it into her marathon pace (8:05s min/mi) for the last 8 or so miles. We got to chatting away like normal and didn't pay attention to the pace. We noticed a couple 7:45s splits, and tried to slow down the pace but apparently it was a comfortable pace for both of us. Heading back into the city we turned into the nasty, 15 MPH head wind for the last 6 or 7 miles. It felt like we were running 9:00s min/mi heading back, but somehow we maintained the same pace? I finished with AP of 7:53 min/mi for 18 miles. Shoot! I thought I needed to slow this long run down because my last 20 and 16 miler were around this pace and I thought I'm pushing too hard. I have no idea how we maintained this pace in such a strong head wind for so long. Once again, I'm glad for the wind, if I can't have hills to make me stronger, I'll take the wind resistance!!

After my run, I got the detailed results for my video gait analysis. She saw a lot of improvement on a few of my flaws from last summer. She pointed out some additional things I need to work on. I'm pretty excited about that because fixing those flaws will keep me injury free and probably will make me faster. The biggest thing is my heel strike. She did notice an improvement from a couple of weeks ago, but recommends I work into a more minimal shoe. Haha! Good thing I got the Kinvaras and Gridtype A5s!! I'm busting out my Brooks Pure Flow again. However, I just ordered more Pegs for the Big Sur. I'm really confused about what shoes to wear for that now! Hopefully I can work up my lower leg strength by then to wear the more minimal shoe for the marathon, and I think I should return the Pegs.

5 lovely easy miles on the Chicago lakefront. My calves were pretty sore from dancing in heels all night, but they loosened up and my run felt totally zen by the end. I love/hate recovery runs. They feel so so good, but then they are over so soon and I have to wait so long to run again!! Finished up with 40 pushups and 5 min planks. 

Thus the conclusion of an epic week for me. I hit 70 miles for the first time ever!! And, it felt easier than my 52 miler weeks back in Nov/Dec. I couldn't be happier with my training right now. :)

This was supposed to be a threshold run 2x15:00 with 5:00 easy. It turned into a junk fartlek run because my body was just not feeling it. After a 2 mile warmup, I tried to hit 6:44 min/mi pace for the first 15:00 interval. My legs were burning so bad, I could only make it to 7-8 mins. I dropped the pace way down to recover and decided maybe I could turn the workout into a 4x1 mile at 8k race pace. I tried a 6:44 pace, then had to drop it to 6:49. I couldn't make it a mile. I dropped the pace to recover and tried a higher pace, 7:18, I think I hit a mile with that one but it was so tough. I recovered then tried a progressive, started at 7:30, after a quarter mile I dropped it to 7:26. Finally I felt like I was hitting a threshold pace, but this pace is sooooo much slower than last week! 

The run is over and I didn't feel spectacular and couldn't hit the paces I normally hit. I'm just going to put this run into perspective, I've been running super fast and my run Sat was probably a harder effort than I should have run, I MUST transition into lower drop/lighter shoes if I want to save my hamstrings (according to my physical therapist and video gait analysis) this run was in shoes I don't normally run thresholds in, I was running a 1970s treadmill so who knows how accurately calibrated it is, and I am leaving my fiance today after an amazing weekend to head back to working in Cambridge. 

Moving forward, my plan is to pick my head back up, focus on working into shoes that will benefit me in the long run, and hit some hills this week. The hills will do me good to not focus on pace and pay more attention to effort. :) 

AM: 4 easy miles on the treadmill. Kept the pace at 8:57 min/mi and changed the incline every 0.5 mile to keep me entertained: 1-1.5-0-0.5-1-1.5-2-0%. My legs still feel a little heavy and my hips are awfully tight. I spent some extra time stretching and foam rolling to work out the kinks. It's an uneasy feeling to have "dead" legs for a couple days in a row, but I hit 70 miles last week, my highest mileage per week of my life, so that puts things into perspective and makes things more comforting. I'm planning another 70 miles this week, so adjusting my pace and being patient with my legs is the ticket I think. :)

PM: 4 easy miles on the treadmill at 1% grade, 8:45 min/mi pace with 8x0.1 mile strides at 6:00 min/mi and 0.1 mile recoveries at 8:41 min/mi pace. Feeling good in the Kinvaras!

12 hilly, slippery, easy miles through Newton. The weather report warned there'd be black ice, and by golly about 90% of this route was a sheet of black ice! I decided to go ahead with the run because it would force me to slow my pace and because I really need to accumulate some downhill mileage in these 4 mm drop shoes if I am going to run Big Sur in them (I have been running in a 12 mm drop shoe). I'm so glad I ran this!! These shoes are awesome on downhill and I can actually midstrike in them!! The first half was a net downhill running the reverse BM course and modifying the route to include a 135 ft downhill/uphill and I ran the second half faster than the first. The black ice sure was a blessing on this run, it also caused me to modify my gait overstriding on black ice will knock you on your bum! Hopefully my legs will remember this form.

Even though my pace was slow (8:50 min/mi AP), I'm pretty happy about this run. I lost track of which Newton Hill I was on because I couldn't tell if I was running uphill or downhill sometimes (based on effort) and my legs felt like jello but not strained at the end. I could tell which hill was HH though! Try running up that one on ice!! :)

Elevation gain: 558 ft 

Track workout: 1200-800-800-1200-800-800-1200m, jog half the distance for recovery. 1200s were supposed to be 5k race pace, 800s were supposed to be 8 sec per 800 faster than 5k race pace. After my junked up threshold run on Monday, I was worried about running this in the 4 mm drop shoes. I started out conservatively even though the last couple weeks I felt like I was holding back running with the group of girls I normally run with. After the first 2 repeats I got into a groove and somehow at the last second decided to lead the pack for the 2nd 800m. We were targeting 47 sec per lap on the 200 m track, my first lap was 44 sec. Whoops. I decided to slow just a little and just go with it. Well, I ended up breaking my 800m PR during this workout...THREE TIMES!!! 

My splits were: 4:55.7-3:11.1-3:04.9-4:47.5-3:06.6-3:06.9-4:49.4

Paces: 6:36-6:24-6:12-6:26-6:16-6:16-6:27 min/mi so 6:23 min/mi for 4.23 miles. This felt really good after Monday's crash session. It kinda goes to show you what you can do with a taper too. I wanted to average sub7 pace for the Shamrock 8k, I'm pretty confident that will happen. I plan on actually tapering for this one, so I have no idea what pace to target!  

6 miles easy loosening up the tight legs after a great track workout last night.

22 miles Hopkinton to Newton. This was an amazing run! One lane of traffic was shut down most of the way for the runners, hundreds of runners! Cops were directing traffic, and people were cheering for us. I was not expecting this and wanted to take pictures on my training run! Haha. This is my first long run in the 4mm drop shoes. I knew it was a gamble, but I won this one. My calves were burning so bad because they have to adjust to the shoe but my hamstrings felt surprisingly really, really good the entire run. I ran with my girls and had trouble keeping up with them once we got to Newton. Just goes to show the improvements I can make continuing to run with them. Hopefully I can recover before my tempo run Monday!! That downhill took a lot out of my legs, but was necessary to protect them for Big Sur. AP: 8:01 min/mi. Oh yeah, a PR for 22 miles for me, and coming off my second week in a row of 70 mpw! :)

5 mile recovery run along the St Charles River. I tried to keep this one super slow. After my long run yesterday, my calves are so tight I can hardly walk! The recovery run did me good. :) 9:15 min/mi AP.

Another easy run day. 4 miles at 9:16 min/mi pace. I normally do threshold runs on Monday, and was supposed to do a 40 min threshold run today. It was going to be my last big threshold before the 8k on April 7. However, my calves are still so tight from Saturday they still hurt to walk. I really need one last good threshold so I rearranged my runs. I'm really, really hoping for a rapid recovery so I can get in my threshold either tomorrow or Wednesday. I'm stretching, icing, using compression and a massager, but getting really nervous. Ahhh!!! On the bright side, my hamstrings and glutes haven't felt this good in a really, really long time. These 4mm drop shoes require some adaption from my calves but are really relieving my hammies. 

I needed one last awesome threshold run before my 8k April 7, and I made sure I got it!!! I held off running to the evening to give my calves those few extra hours to recover (still) from Saturday. During the wu, I was first happy with how they felt, by the end of the warmup I was like oh no this ain't gonna be good cause my calves were feeling weak. I was targeting a 40:00 threshold at 7:55 min/mi pace. I started feeling pretty good around the 1.5 mile mark and thought seriously about increasing the pace, but held off. 30 mins is a lot of time left. Normally 40:00 threshold would be just under 5.85 miles. I decided once I hit mile 4 I'd increase my pace at mile 5. So, I dropped it to 7:49 min/mi pace, held that until mile 5.5, then dropped to 7:44 min/mi pace and decided to run LONGER to hit 6 miles. I felt like I could have gone longer, but didn't want to reveal my race legs until race day. :)

I'm so happy about this run. I hit this pace 2 weeks ago and it was HARD back then! It felt so much easier today even though my calves were only 80%. I am noticing virtually no more soreness in my hamstrings, which I've had since October. I didn't realize it was due to overstriding. Now that I'm correcting that, I'm excited to see the paces I'll hit with healthy hamstrings once my calves adapt!

Big Sur simulation run on the treadmill. :)

2 mile wu @ 1% incline, 9:05 min/mi pace

2 mile @ 5% incline, 9:05 min/mi pace 

1 mile @ 0% incline, 7:41 min/mi pace

0.25 mi @ 3.5% incline, 8:00 min/mi pace

0.25 mi @ 0% incline, 7:41 min/mi pace

0.5 mi @ 3.5% incline, 8:00 min/mi pace

0.5 mi @ 0% incline, 7:41 min/mi pace

0.5 mi @ 3.5% incline, 8:00 min/mi pace

0.5 mi @ 0% incline, 7:41 min/mi pace

1 mile cd @ 1% incline, 8:27 min/mi pace

5x0.1 mile strides @ 1% incline, 6:00 min/mi pace with 0.1 mile recoveries

Haha, this was a lot of fun! I just kind of made it up during my wu. Big Sur has a 5% climb over 2 miles around mile 10 of the marathon followed by (debatably) 13 smaller hills. I figured I'd find out now what those smaller hills would feel like. Not too shabby. :) 

Track workout on treadmill...so treadmill workout with my cheat sheet. :) Kept everything at 1% incline:

1.1 mile wu

4x400m  @ 6:00 min/mi pace, 200m recoveries

2x1000m @ 6:15 min/mi pace, 500m recoveries

4x400m @ 6:00 min/mi pace, 200m recoveries

1 mile cd

This felt comfortably hard. Going from 400s to 1000s helped me learn to calm it down and be patient, switching back from 1000s to 400s made the last 4x400s super "easy".

Finished up with some stretching, core, pt, strength, and foam rolling the calves.  

Easy run in FL. Tried to keep it around 9:30 min/mi pace while I soaked in the sunshine. :)

16 mile long run in FL. Ringling Bridge repeats. I tried to slow this one down since I think my last 5-6 long runs have been a little on the too fast side. Apparently my slowish long run pace with hills is 8:12 min/mi pace. Scary... :)

Recovery run in 78 degree weather with my sister. 10:15 min/mi pace. This was so weird to run this pace, but my sister is just getting into running after having a baby so I tried to pace slightly behind her to boost her self esteem. :)