Hello from beautiful South Carolina! I’m in my happy place.

We got up Saturday morning, got in our runs and then packed up the car and headed out. I’ve never been so excited for a car trip. Plus, after our 11 hour drive to Boston the 4 ½ our trip down here seemed like a piece of cake!

Let’s take a look at the past week of running. It wasn’t my best one yet, but we all have them right?

 

Monday – 5 miles

The goal for Monday was simply to go slow and try to recover from my 3 x 1 mile repeats on Sunday. Those were no joke.

If you are interested, you can see a breakdown of that work out here.

The run wasn’t bad, just your typical Monday morning slow run.

 

Tuesday – 8 miles (Workout #1)

Tuesday was when things went south. I woke up for my workout at my normal 4:15 am. I started on my 2 mile warm up and could tell my legs felt slow.

I figured it was just my normal “4 am tired legs” so I just kept going with my warm up hoping that they would kick in during the workout, which they have in the past.

The goal workout was 5 x 1200 in 4:50.

The first one was a struggle but I managed a 4:56. I always find that the first set of intervals is the hardest so I did my 400 recovery and set up to the next one.

The second 1200 was worse. My legs just didn’t want to move and I did that one in 5:04. At that point I made the decision to cut it. It just wasn’t worth it. For whatever reason my body wasn’t recovered and I wasn’t about to push it.

I finished out the remaining 4 miles slow and easy. When I say slow and easy I meant my body didn’t want to move much faster than a 10 minute mile.

 

Wednesday – 7 miles

I was nervous to step foot out the door Wednesday. I vowed I wouldn’t even look at my watch and even turn the vibration notification off so I’d take it easy.

The 7 miles were in no way easy, but much better than I had felt on Tuesday.

 

Thursday – 8 miles (Workout #2)

Originally the plan was to do a 45 minute fartlek this morning. Wes and I talked and decided I should try to do cruise intervals instead to see where my body was at and go from there.

I didn’t have a set number going into it, I just know I’d do a mile around goal marathon pace and see how it felt. It wouldn’t be quite as taxing as really fast intervals.

I did my 2 mile warm up and then started in.

I actually didn’t feel too bad. I ended up doing 4 in total: 7:26, 7:24, 7:22, and 7:24. It was steady and consistent. I felt like 4 was a good number for the day and I was running out of time so I called it a day after a mile cool down.

I was so pleased that this one didn’t feel awful.

 

Friday – Off

I was ready for my rest day this week! Since I do my Thursday workout so early, it gives me lots of time to recover before Saturday’s long run.

 

Saturday – 12 miles

I woke up bright at early for a Saturday at 6:00 AM and headed out to run. I needed to get in my scheduled 12 miles and be back in time to take my pup to her sitters.

Overall it was a pretty good run. Tried to keep it slow and even though it was 6:30 in the morning it was still pretty humid out!

 

Sunday – Workout #3

The goal for Sunday is to try to do the workout scheduled. It actually is pretty mild so I may give it a shot. It’ll be my first workout down at the beach so I do keep that in mind as well.

It’s supposed to be a 2-3 mile Warm Up, 4 x 400 with equal recovery, and a 2-3 mile cool down.

 

That wraps up this week. Wasn’t the best week and I’m still testing my body out to see how it responds. I’ve been under a lot of stress this week so that could have played a big part into it.

Looking forward to a week of running and vacationing ahead!

 

How did your running go this week?

Are you a beach or mountains person?