It feels good to be back to blogging again. I’m not 100% sure where I want to take everything, but I’m just trying to let things come. I feel like the more I take the pressure off the more relaxed and enjoyable this will all be. I want to be more real and be more me.

Anyways, there is one thing that hasn’t changed in the last several weeks. I am still training away for the Boston Marathon on April 18^th. Even though I haven’t been sharing much of my training the past several weeks, you can get a quick catch up by visiting my Instagram.

To summarize, I’ve had some good runs, some awful runs, but I’ve been really struggling when it comes to my long runs. You see, I’ve always been a fasted runner, even for my long runs. I wake up on Saturday morning, drink water, and slowly get ready and am usually out the door within an hour or so. I run my weekday runs fasted, mostly because I am usually running by 4:30 AM and don’t have time to get up and eat anything. They are usually shorter, so I don’t seem to have a problem.

I’ve been really having trouble around miles 13-14 of my long runs. It’s been extremely frustrating as I’m trying to cram in as much as I can in the last 8 weeks after coming back from my rib fracture. I had a phone call with my coach on Friday to discuss how to change up for Saturday’s long run. More to come on that!

As I used to do, let’s recap my training for T-6 weeks to the Boston Marathon (cue internal panic).

 

Monday – 5 miles

Monday was a nice and easy introduction into the week. I’ve really learned to slow down during this training cycle. I don’t even look at my watch throughout and just go off how my body was feeling. It was still tired from a tough 16 miles on Saturday, so I just took it slow and relaxed.

I did finish off the run with 6 x 100 meter strides. This was the first time really doing them again since my rib fracture.

 

Tuesday – 7 miles

Occasionally my coach will schedule a treadmill workout for me. I like them because he has it spelled out exactly what I need to set the treadmill on and it takes a lot of the guess work out of it. Tuesday’s workout was a mixture of hills and tempo work.

Workout:  1.5 M warm up, 2 x (0.1 M @ 6:50 pace, 0.15 M easy), 6 x (0.25 M @ 7:45 pace/4-5% incline, 0.25 M @ 7:45 pace/0% incline), 0.5 M easy, 1 M @ 7:45 pace/0% incline, 0.5M @ 7:45/2-3% incline, and cool down.

I ran the first 5 intervals at 4% incline and then increased it to 5% for the last one. The final tempo/incline set of 0.5 M I broke down with 0.25 M at 2% incline and the last 0.25M at 3% incline. Overall, the workout went really well and for the first time I felt pretty strong.

 

Wednesday – 4 miles

Another recovery focused day with 4 miles easy. One of the biggest changes for me this training cycle is the reduction in mileage and sometimes I still struggle with these short/easy days.

I’m focusing on embracing it and remembering that this will all pay off in the long run. It may not be my ideal right now, but in the future I am hoping to have a lot of success from giving my body a break this time around.

I finished it off with some strength work.

 

Thursday – 6 miles

My final “workout” of the week was 6 miles broken down as: 2.5 mile warm up, 8 x (1 minute FAST, 1 minute easy), and a cool down.

I got to do this one outside which was nice, and was only my second workout outside in the last several weeks. I felt surprisingly good and couldn’t believe that I was able to do this one in shorts and a tank top! It was so nice to be running back home as the sun was coming up even though I know that will be changing soon.

 

Friday – Off

 

Saturday – 20 miles

Saturday made me nervous since my long runs have recently been my biggest struggle. My husband and I went to stay at my in-laws to get a change of scenery, and I really focused on trying not to stress about it ahead of time.

I started out trying a new fueling strategy, which I’ll go into detail on during a later post, and tried to really focus on one mile at a time. Unfortunately, I had to do an out and back course which isn’t ideal but it got the job done.

The first 10 miles went pretty well, though I could quickly tell that it was going to end up being much warmer than I had anticipated. My mother-in-law was out biking with my husband so I was able to meet up with her right before 10 for some water. Around mile 15 I could tell I was feeling much more tired but I kept pushing forward.

The final 20 miles was completed at an 8:30 average. A little slower than I had hoped for, but I’ll take it. Overall a much better run than I have had the past couple weeks.

 

Sunday – 4 miles

I am planning on heading out to the trails for my Sunday recovery miles. I’m really looking forward to slowing down and letting my legs recover.

 

I’m happy with this week and I really felt like I worked hard to re-set my mind after the last couple struggling weeks. The mental battle is often one of the hardest parts. It’s something I’ve really focused on the past several weeks and I think it is finally paying off!

 

Lets catch up! How is your running going?