Wow. Time has been a-flying!

I can’t believe I just finished week 8 and am now counting DOWN the weeks til Phoenix Marathon!

 

I’m pretty pumped 😀

So, this was my last week of vacation from work and again, I took full advantage of the time off.

Monday, I got in a tough 6 miler on the treadmill. It’d been a while since I’d gotten on one of those things and I could definitely feel it. I still was able to maintain a good pace at 9:22/mile though which pleased me.

I took the day off on Tuesday but I wanted a good last run of 2014 so on Wednesday I headed out for a neighborhood run..

With two kids, very young kids, we were in bed on New Year’s Eve at 9. We try every year to make it to 10 to at least see the ball drop in New York but this year, it just didn’t happen. We were out! And sure enough, at 5 on the dot, my son woke up and woke us up for the first day of 2015 🙂 So, Thursday I hung out with the fam, relaxed, and welcomed the new year.

My kids went to school on Friday and I took advantage of a free morning to get in a cold 5 miler with friends.

My buddies made me work! I don’t know why this pace was so hard; I’ve done it before, but I was def lagging behind them on this one. I’m blaming the cold.

I was worried running, and running so fast, would mess with my long run planned the next day. It was my dreaded 16 miler that for some reason has always given me trouble. My last 16 miler when I trained for MCM was very respectable at a 10:06/mile pace but when I get to mile 16 in the marathon (the two that I’ve done) it’s where I start to go downhill–and not good downhill lol.

But this time I was ready. Like I’ve mentioned in earlier posts, I’ve really been working on my fueling and it was on this run that I really put it to test.

So Saturday morning, my alarm went off at crazy o’clock (4:15) and I met up with some friends (aka: other crazy people) who I was able to convince to meet up at 5 to start our long run.

It was effing cold (I wore 3 layers) and we didn’t chat much but got straight to it.

I was doing great, the miles were going fast, and at mile 6 we met up with our other run club friends who were starting at 6 a.m. Here, I made a pit stop to use the potty.

As I got back into the run, I took my first Gu. The whole thing. At mile 12, again, took my second planned Gu. All of it.

Other times I’ve barely squeezed out half of one in a long run such as that.

But this is a new and determined Helly–I ate all that shi-stuff.

By the time I got to mile 14, I was so pumped that I had made it that far and only had 2 miles left. I was rocking this long run!

And then I was done!

I totally felt like a BEETH after finishing that run 😀

On Sunday was my usual Bun Day (and leg). I’ve been working my quads in prep of that eternal downhill that is Phoenix Marathon…I did take it easy though because I was suuuuper tired from Saturday.

Overall, this was one of my best running weeks ever! Each run I was able to keep pace and feel good. I finished off December with 103 miles and the year with exactly 1000.

Total mileage for this week: 34.09

Oh, and I’m happy to report that I met my water goal the last three days. After seeing the poor water drop’s sad face I couldn’t let that happen again lol!

How was your running week?

When’s the last time you’ve felt like a BEETH?