Oh, hi there!

It’s hard to believe that I’m officially 1 month post-Chicago Marathon. I wouldn’t say I’m 100% back, but that just may be me being a little timid, but I’d say I am a lot closer than I was.

In fact, after this week I’m starting to feel a bit more like myself and back on a semi-normal schedule again. It still involves too many early mornings, but unless someone can explain to me how to make lots of money without going to work that isn’t going to change anytime soon. Ha! I kid.

Anyways, let’s get into it shall we…

 

Monday – 5 miles

I started the week off as you know, on the treadmill. It wasn’t fun and it wasn’t pretty.

I contemplated doing a workout to make it go by quicker but I knew it wouldn’t be a good idea. Instead I put on Netflix and trudged through it.

 

Tuesday – 7 miles (tempo)

I did my very first tempo type run since Chicago training on Tuesday morning. The great thing about this run was even though it was a “workout” I put absolutely no pressure on myself to perform. Sure, I knew I’d be working harder but if it was too hard I was more than ready to cut it.

I did a slow 2 miles to warm my legs up and then began the tempo run. The goal was somewhere between 3-4. Nothing too crazy but just wanted to see what my legs had in me.

I averaged a 7:15 total for the 4 miles. It didn’t feel easy but it didn’t feel awful either. It was exactly how I’d expect to feel.

It’s amazing just how runs like this can be such therapy, even at 4:00 AM!

 

Wednesday – 5 miles

After a big higher miles than I usually do during the week, I opted to go back down to 5 easy recovery miles on Wednesday. Thankfully, I was able to do it outside instead of the treadmill.

I finished it out with some planks and strength work before calling it a day.

 

Thursday – 6 miles (hill workout)

I did something I haven’t done since before Chicago marathon training, hills! To my defense it’s not something that is really vital in Chicago, but definitely something that should have been done.

There are hills everywhere near my house, so it wasn’t hard to find a long steady hill to get it done on.

I did a 2 mile warm up, 8 x 1 minute hills (5k-10k pace), 6 x 20 second strides, and a cool down.

This reminded me just how great of a workout hills are and how much more I am going to need to do them before Boston!

 

Friday – Off

No surprise here! Just like every week I took Friday off and slept in until the glorious hour of 6:00 AM.

I did get this beauty in on Friday when I got home from work.

I’ve watched this come in for my husband year and year, and never idd I think it would come in for me as well. I’m really proud of this because I know the blood, sweat, and tears that went into making it happen. I truly earned it, and I can’t tell you how wonderful that feels!

 

Saturday – 10-11 miles

Unfortunately the weather didn’t want to cooperate on Saturday morning, so we headed to the gym to at least have a change of scenery on the treadmill.

I was so glad we opted to run inside, because if we had taken the risk we would have ended up drenched.

I did a short warm up outside and then did a 10 mile progressive run on the treadmill. I started slow around a 9:05 and then worked my way down to 7:35. It definitely got harder near the end, but that was more from being bored on the treadmill and the heat in the gym then anything else.

I did a quick cool down afterwards and ended up somewhere close to 11 miles. I didn’t really track it all out after the treadmill, but it didn’t really matter.

 

Sunday – 5 miles

After Saturday I am taking it slow and easy on Sunday. Let my body recover, relax and get ready for the start of another week!

 

What was your best run this week?

Do you do hill sprints often?