Training Rundown Week 4

You remember how your parents always taught you that if you can't say something nice you shouldn't say anything at all? If I was following that advice I wouldn't be typing up this post. Last week was, to put it nicely, really sucky. Between the holiday and working more than three times as many hours as usual at my second job I was completely overexerted and thrown off. I'm trying to remember my own advice and just let it go and move forward to a better week but to be honest I'm kind of beating myself up.

Here's the dirty details.

Monday: Rest
I was beat from the previous week (7 days, 7 workouts). I was tempted to squeeze in a short run but the weather didn't agree anyways. I accepted the unplanned rest day with dreams of the rest of the week working out perfectly. sigh.

Tuesday: 50 minute run, abs + arms
I covered a bit over 5 miles and felt really strong. I pulled my PureCadences out (for the first time since the duathlon) and felt surprisingly good in them. My pace was faster and I was hitting a good midfoot strike. 

Wednesday: Speed work, Tempo A per Jenny Hadfield's plan
The Tempo A run may be my favorite speed work of this training plan. It's a 5-minute walking warm-up then 10-minute easy pace running. After that it's 4 repeats of 5 minutes 80-85% HR, 2 minutes recovery and finally a 5 run-5 walk cool down. I maintained a pace of just below 8 for all my tempos and shaved off a second or two with each repeat. I liked that I was consistent and that I sped up through out. 

Thursday: 45 minute run, abs
See a pattern here? Running felt so good and I was feeling so fast that I really broke my own rule and ran too many back to back days. This run felt awesome though, despite the 95% humidity. 

Friday-Sunday NOTHING
Not to be the excuse machine, but things just weren't working in my favor. It was storming on and off all weekend and I worked well over 20 hours in retail during those three days. On Saturday I spent 13 hours on my feet without sitting down once! I actually woke up during the night screaming because my calves were cramping. I think I'm more sore from retail-extravaganza than I've ever been after a race.

Total miles: 16. Wah wah waaaaaaah.

Plan for this week: Get back on track! An off week will happen but the most important thing is to recover. I actually leave for vacation on Thursday so I'm prepared for next week to maybe not go exactly according to plan (which is ok!) but I don't want to fall off too much. I'm pretty sure my vacation mates are all looking forward to running 14 miles with me though, right? :-)