Chicago Marathon Training: Week 13 Recap

Posted by hellyontherun in Marathon Training and tagged with 20 miler, Charity Runner, Chicago Marathon 2015, Marathon Training, Running, Team RMHC September 8, 2015

I hope everyone had a great weekend and that those stateside enjoyed their extra day (if you got one) 🙂

Even though I couldn’t get in high mid-week mileage, it was a confidence building week of training–one that I felt I needed at this moment as we’re inching closer and closer to the less than one month away mark!

Last Monday, I started off the week with a short 4 miler but I saw numbers I hadn’t seen in a while.

It was a negative split run and the first mile was actually already starting off at a good pace for me, so to get better from that 9:42 made me super excited. And that 8:36 last mile just had me smiling from ear to ear. Finally, that overall pace was a low I hadn’t seen in a while.

I rested Tuesday as my husband was out of town again and I had kid duty. I could have squeezed in a run but….I didn’t 🙂

Wednesday I met up with my run club and they had a mini hill workout on the schedule. I chose to bypass that and run another 4 miler instead.

A sub 100 degree run??? Wha???

It was close to another negative split and close to a similar overall pace as my Monday run. Again, this made me feel really, really good 🙂

Thursday I stuck to my 4 miler theme and ran around my neighborhood (It actually ended up being 4.2–you know you gotta count that point two). I took this run easier as I had had two good runs and didn’t want to push myself. It was still a great one with an overall pace of 9:48 and I finished with the last two miles faster than my first two.

It was an important rest day Friday as Saturday I had my first 20 miler of the training!

Yep, Saturday morning I woke up at zero dark thirty for this one (2:30 a.m. to be exact) and met up with another crazy friend also doing a 20 miler. We got going at 3:09 and planned to run 10 miles, five out and back, before meeting up with the rest of our run club at 5 a.m. We made one stop around the 7 and halfish mark for a potty break but that was the only stop of miles 1-10.

I was really happy with my consistency (see miles 4-7!!!) and I met up with my back 10 crew in high spirits.

Two running buddies were waiting for me at 5 to run my second set of 10 and we got going not too long after I got to the meeting spot. We were cruising at my pace (I wanted to be around the 10-10:30 mark) and they were uh-mazing at keeping me on track. I was feeling it around miles 12 and 13 and they quickly re-focused me.

I did stop at mile 15 (the turn around) but it was quick as I knew I didn’t want to lose momentum.

Then, at mile 17 I had to go potty 😦 and I was forced to stop again. This super bummed me out as like I had mentioned last week, I wanted to really try and avoid any stopping on my long runs.

I definitely felt that potty stop around mile 18 as my left calf started cramping a little. I didn’t want to stop though so I ran through it and sure enough, it dissipated after a few minutes. Whew!

Finally, I wanted to finish strong so my girls picked it up and I had them finish me at a 9:34 mile 20!!!

These 79 degrees felt great. The 65% humidity did not, lol!

I was so happy with this run and really pleased with the consistency in my splits. My slowest mile was 10:37 and my fastest (besides the last mile) was 10:06 so I was +/- 30 seconds the entire way!

It was also my husband’s first 20 miler this past weekend and he knocked his out of the ballpark too! Much faster than me, lol, but I still love him 😀

I ended the week with 32.2 miles and feeling pretty darn good about myself going into this week. My goal of sub 4:30 is looking realistic and I just hope all this hard summer training pays off. We’ll find out in about a month!

I hope everyone has a great week!! ❤ , helly

–How was your week of running?

–Do you try to keep consistent splits, negative splits, or do you just run and what happens, happens?

Chicago Marathon Training: Week 12 Recap

Posted by hellyontherun in Marathon Training, Running and tagged with Chicago Marathon, Marathon Training, Mom on the Run, Running, Team RMHC September 1, 2015

Helloooo September!!!! So, I’m officially in the “next month” part of my training. As in, “Chicago Marathon is next month“!!!

For reals tho.

Okay, I’m gonna try and keep this positive with this week’s recap because it was a really tough week. The husband was out of town for the first half so I was in solo-parenting duty. I’m going to have to do this quite a bit for the rest of the year as he is booked to leave the state (and country!) at least once each month up to January. Excuse me while I die.

Anyway, I had my own busy schedule at work as Tuesday was our school’s Open House. That meant I had to move my run to Monday (which I usually bike but haven’t in the last, oh….3-4 weeks). So Monday I rushed home from work as I had an hour before I had to do kid pick-up. I was actually pretty pleased with this run. It was tough, but not horrible.

Tuesday was the longest day eveeeeeeer. I woke up at my usual 4:45 to get ready for work and then had to wrangle the kids and do morning drop off (my husband usually does this since I have my long commute) and this is the part that always stresses me out when I”m solo. Luckily, I was able to make the 45 minute drive and get to work on time. After work, I had to drive 45 minutes back to pick up kids and drop them off so that my sister-in-law could watch them while I drove 45 minutes back to work for Open House. After Open House was over, yup, I had to drive all the way back home–not 45 minutes since there was no traffic at 8:30 p.m. lol!

When I got home, I was greeted at the door by my husband!! He was able to cut his trip short and I gave him the biggest, tightest hug ever. I was so tired that I had no idea how I would’ve functioned the rest of the week without him, and it was barely Tuesday!

Wednesdays are track days and I dragged myself to my run club’s speed work session. I was not at all feeling it though, and after two 800s I stopped to chat with my buddy who recently BQd at Santa Rosa Marathon. She showed off her medal and swag and shared her story and it was way more interesting than Yassos. I managed two more before I just called it quits.

It was another after work/before kid pick-up run on Thursday as we had a play date that evening. It didn’t go as well as Tuesday’s run though, lol!

I took a rest day Friday, and Saturday I woke up to meet up with my friend (the same one who had just BQd the weekend before!) to run my 13 miler long run. She’s training for a 100 miler and said she’d join me and count this as her recovery run. Bad ass status.

My alarm went off at 3:30 for my 4 a.m. start time and I ran 5 miles before meeting up with the 5 a.m. crew. My splits were all over the place and I never could really settle down.

I also keep saying that I’m not gonna turn back and stop for the 5 a.m. crew, and just keep my long run continuous, but I somehow always end up back. Anyway, it wasn’t a long break, maybe 8 minutes or so, before we headed back out.

But again, I struggled to get going after stopping…

The only other stop was at mile 10, to fuel, and I didn’t stop my watch. I fueled one other time, after mile 5 during my first stop.

It was a tough run/one, but I was happy that I ended on a good note. AND, I was happy that despite having a rough start to the week sans husband, I was still able to get my runs in. That’s what I’ve been really proud of this cycle; I’ve consistently been running 4 times a week. My other trainings, the 4th run was always sporadic and I’d always make an excuse as to why I couldn’t add that extra run. This time though, I’m just making it happen, some way, some how. 😀

Total miles this week– 23.88 and total miles for August — 107.77

Hope everyone is having a Terrific Tuesday and week so far!! ❤ , helly

–How was your monthly mileage?

–How do you combat excuses your mind tries to make?

Chicago Marathon Training: Week 9 (and Mt. Humphreys!) Recap

Posted by hellyontherun in Marathon Training, Running and tagged with Arizona, Chicago Marathon, Hiking, Marathon Training, Mt. Humphreys, Running August 10, 2015

Well hello there halfway mark of marathon training!!

For such a momentous point, my running this past week was pretty underwhelming.

7 miles.

Yup, that’s all I ran.

Before I begin, I want to announce the winner of the Slick Laces giveaway….CONGRATS

Tricia Vaughn @MissSippiPiddlin.com

I’ll be sending you an e-mail soon to discuss details!! A big thank you to Slick Laces and all who entered 😀

And back to my training recap:

On Monday, I spent 30 minutes on the bike.
On Tuesday I ran 4 miles and on Wednesday I ran 3.
And that’s pretty much it for running, ja!

It was actually pretty funny that the only two days I ran were these particular two:

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Heat warning, shmeat warning

Tuesday I met up with a few friends in the evening and while the group usually does a 3 miler, I added an extra one. It was definitely hot (108 degrees at the 6 p.m. start) so I took it nice and easy.

Wednesday I was back at track for some more Yasso fun. I don’t know why I like doing these so much lol!

It was another 108 degrees at the start but somehow despite the heat, I was able to pull off 6 solid 800s.

4:00, 3:56, 3:53, 3:58, 3:58, 3:54

#eyeofthetiger

Thursday was the first day back at work for teacher meetings and right after, it was pick up kids and head straight to dinner/play date. No running. It happens.

Friday was another work day and right after my husband and I loaded our truck and headed up north for our Mt. Humphreys hike the next day 😀

Road Trip!!!

It was a considerable weather difference in Flagstaff compared to Phoenix. So much so, that I was very, very glad I’d brought my jacket. It was raining like crazy and all we kept hoping for was that it would stop when we started the next morning.

It did.

We got going at 6 in the morning starting at 9,000 feet. You begin the climb right away and it was pretty much straight up for the next almost 5 miles.

It was sooo cold!!! I was triple layered with a running shirt, pullover sweater, and a jacket (that jacket saved me!) and I even had gloves on! My hands were freezing and were getting badly swollen the higher I climbed. One girl in our group didn’t make it all the way up because she was freaking out about her hands.

It was also extremely foggy so we didn’t get any views as we climbed. That kinda bummed us out but we were glad we were still able to do it and weren’t rained out.

Hello, fog!

There wasn’t a whole lotta picture taking climbing up as we were concentrating on getting to the summit. The trail is well marked but it gets a little dicey the closer you get to the top. We reached one last flat spot with one last climb ahead and we knew we’d done it. We were finally at the top, 3,000+ feet and 3 and a half hours later.

Humphreys Peak 12,633 ft.

We didn’t hang out long at the top; it was so cold and windy. Plus, there were no views as we were pretty much in the clouds.

So we headed back down and as we descended, there were areas where the fog cleared up enough for us to see some landscape.

Even though going down was in some ways easier than going up, it still took us a while. We kept thinking we were further than we were only to be told by those going up that we were still a ways from the start.

The closer we got, the clearer the skies got and we told those beginning their trek that they’d fair better with the views than we did lol! It was all good though. In a way, it was kinda cool to have hiked it with fog all around us.

When we finally reached the plains at the bottom, we were so happy! It had been a long hike at a little over 6 hours. We had stopped along the way to eat (I packed jerky, an orange, cereal bars, and some twizzlers) but I was ready for a burger and a Coke.

Done!!

Even though we hadn’t gotten the amazing views Mt. Humphreys has to offer, it was still an incredible experience and adventure and I’m stoked I can cross it off my list. I can officially say I’ve been to the highest point possible in our state 😀

And that was my week! Pretty uneventful running wise (7 miles) but hella awesome hiking (10 miles). <— Totally counted that as my long run, lol!

–Do you know what the highest peak in your state/province/area?

–Are you afraid of heights? Hiking your thing?

Have a great week, amigos! Back to school/work I go! ❤ , helly