Week 11
45 miles (43 due to moving 5 mile run to Saturday last week), long run 20 miles, speedwork 9 miles with 8 miles at marathon pace.
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4/9/2023
Yesterday my sister and I snuck in a snowy Bismarck run and somehow I dressed as an ad for the Earth Day Run.
Easter Sunday, I woke up early to sneak in a 3 mile run on the treadmill at our hotel before going to church and heading to my sister’s house for the day. I ate all the stuff, over ate all the stuff and the junk food, then rode in the car for over 5 hours home. Not the best way to fuel up for my speed work tomorrow.
4/10/2023
Oh the negative thoughts have been abundant lately. Can I really do this? I’ve been so slow! I don’t really know what kind of shape I’m in. The Earth Day half marathon is coming up in a couple of weeks. I’m planning to go out at around the same pace as last year but am nervous that the pace will be too fast and I’ll crash. All of these thoughts were running through my head as I prepared to run 8 miles at marathon pace.
Spring finally arrived and it felt like 50 degrees. I was able to run in a tank top! My Garmin was set for a half mile warm up, 8 miles at marathon pace with a 15 second range, half mile cool down. I went out really slow for my first half mile and then picked up the pace. I was so glad I had my watch set to buzz a reminder if I was too slow or fast. The first 4 miles I had more reminders of being slow and the last 4 I had reminders that I was too fast. Overall it felt good. I could’ve gone faster and run farther! I’m so glad I did this run as a confidence builder. I looked back at this run in my training last year and I was 3 seconds per mile fast this year. This is the first run in my training that has been faster than last year.
Tomorrow is a rest day, then I have 3 short runs and a 20 miler to finish out the week. Rain is in the forecast for Thursday and Friday, then cooler on Saturday. I’ll have to go with the best weather day for my 20 miler.
4/12/2023
I had a short 3 mile run this afternoon. My body was certainly not ready for the heat of feeling like 70 degrees! Seriously, my heartrate looked like I was on the verge of a heart attack, probably dehydrated before I started.
To get ready for my 20 miler tomorrow I laid out all the food and beverages I will need before and during my run. This will be my third 20 mile run of this marathon training program and I still get nervous. The weather should be great, temps in the 40s-50s. I plan to run it at an easy pace since I already completed a marathon pace run this week.
4/13/2023
I set my alarm for 5:00 so I could have a small cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal. I needed to get my kids to school and be run ready by 8:00 since I was scheduled to work in the afternoon. 45 minutes before I hit the road I ate half of a peanut butter sandwich and drank a serving of UCAN.
I had two dilemmas: wear shorts or tights, wear my old shoes with high miles or my new shoes with only 3 miles? My sister looked at the temps and told me to wear shorts and also told me to go for the new shoes. Good call on both!
The weather was supposed to low 40s to start and low 50s at the finish with a chance of light rain at the end. I was 2 miles in when I saw lightning in the direction I was running, so I turned around to run north, only to be met with huge black clouds. After a mile of running to the black cloud I turned around again to see the lightning clouds had cleared. So after playing dodge the thunderstorms I settled into an out and back with some rolling hills.
I kept my pace easy and drank Tailwind every couple of miles, took Salt Stick every 4 and sporadically ate a fruit snack. Since I had turned around a couple of times and didn’t have an exact route plan I just guessed on how far I had to run to hit 20 miles, unfortunately I can’t run and do math. I ended up running 20.5 miles. My last mile and a half was my fastest, although I didn’t push the pace, just kept it comfortable. I had a solid tailwind for a couple of miles and the temp hit 58 with glorious sunshine. Most of the snow was also gone!
I had 30 minutes to stretch, shower and eat before heading to work. Thankfully Salt Stick kept nausea away.
4/14/2023
4 mile recovery run this morning. My legs were definitely tired but I wasn’t really sore and overall felt healthy. Half marathon next week will be the true test.
Reviewing my mileage for the last 30 days and I was shocked to see that I had logged 195.9 miles. Lower miles are in sight!! My husband asked how many hours I put into my workouts each week, my estimate about 15 hours per week. He thinks it’s more. I’m going to write down times over the next two weeks.
Total miles: 43.6
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