Week #20 -- life gets in the way again

Summary for week ending Sunday, May 15, 2016:

Number of workouts: 5
Total miles run: 40.91
Average miles per run: 8.18

Miles in May: 98.38
Miles in 2016: 901.26


Tapering unofficially began last week, I suppose, if you look at it from a mileage standpoint, and continued this week, as I was traveling again -- this time in Montreal, QC for a workshop at McGill University. I had never been to Montreal before and while my hotel was seemingly ideally located to a very large park with trails, I did not have time to do any exploring (and, let's be honest, I'm not all that brave about running on trails in a strange city all by myself). I arrived late Wednesday afternoon and took the time to walk around a little but not up to the park. Thursday was a lovely and warm day, but I did not want to go exploring park trails in the morning when I had a firm morning scheduling commitment -- even just going out and back cannot be assumed to go without hitch. Thursday evening I was late getting back to the hotel -- 7 p.m. -- far too late to try to explore the park, so I did a few miles on the treadmill in the hotel.

I had not considered that I was in Canada and that in Canada, things are not really done in miles. I started the belt with numbers that made sense for my treadmill at home and wondered "Why is this so slow??" Fortunately I quickly put two and two together (I am a scientist, after all) and got it going, but then had to do math the whole time to try to tick off the mile splits on my Garmin at the right times. Who wants to have to do math during a run?! It was a decent run, if a bit zzz because I didn't take any music in with me and there was nothing worth looking at on the TV that was right in my face on the console; and nothing of interest out the window, which faced a small parking lot and a Subway across the street.

I had hoped to have time to go up and for a run in the park at the close of the workshop Friday afternoon, but the weather was no longer pleasant -- it had begun raining and was gloomy, and with rain threatening I passed on the park exploration again. And then, being actually quite exhausted from having to be thinking scientifically and being social all day, passed on running on the treadmill again too. Instead, I got up early Saturday to do another ~5 miles (~8K) on the treadmill. There was an older gentleman walking on the machine next to me, but he kept to himself and I kept to myself and had another pretty zzz run that did its job. It's been a while since I did any mileage on the treadmill.

So I did not run as much during the week (for the second week in a row) that I had hoped to/thought I might. Legs were feeling pretty fresh for the last long and tough workout on Sunday, which was 2 mi E + 15 mi M + 2 mi E. The day was decent enough -- cool-ish and though it had rained a lot overnight, it held off during the day. I thought I would do the M miles at around 7:40-7:45 and my legs felt good enough that they kept turning them out at more like 7:35, even when I tried to back off a little bit to be more 7:40-ish. So I just let them do it.

I had kind of thought that, if my legs were feeling it, I would run a little more than 2 mi E at the end and maybe try to get to 22 as I did not get over 20 this training cycle and that had/has me a little worried. But after 15 miles of ~7:35-7:40, anything more than the 2 E I did was going to be junk. So I did the 2 easy and called it a successful workout.

7:35-7:40 might be a little rich for another 11 miles, so unless my legs are totally feeling it, I'm going to really force them to go 7:40-7:45 (if they feel good enough for that, even).

This week the official taper begins, but that will only be formality after the last couple lower-volume weeks.

Week #18 -- finishing up out of town

Summary for week ending Sunday, May 1, 2016:

Number of workouts: 5
Total miles run: 46.15
Average miles per run: 9.23

Miles in April: 208.46
Miles in May: 19.07
Miles in 2016: 821.95

Arriving in the Midwest on the last day of May, the weather was vile, pouring rain pretty much non-stop from time of arrival until early evening. I was not going to run in that, as I was too tired from rising at 3 a.m. for a very early flight to even guilt myself into toughing it out. By the time it had eased up, I was full of Chicago-style deep dish from Wig and Pen, so ....

The weather was marginally better Sunday -- I got my workout done in between rainy moments. I did a tough tempo workout on Sunday. Typically my first days of running in Iowa don't feel that good -- not sure why, perhaps mostly a combo of poor eating and poor sleeping over the last couple days. No exception this day, and I made myself run hard even when it wasn't feeling good. 2 mi E + 4(5 min T) + 10 mi E + scheduled 4(5 min T) + 2 mi E. I did the first part OK, though legs were not very responsive -- tempo intervals on the track at my high school and 10 easy miles on the well-known roads of the east side. Very slow and not because I was forcing myself to do 9:00/per, it's just what my legs did. Was feeling the muscles in my lower abdomen start to act up a bit, and when I went back to the track for the 4(5 min T), I got started on the first interval and it was too painful. It didn't ease up and I couldn't make myself run through it, so I bailed on the T and started to jog home. As I jogged, the discomfort cooled it enough for me to keep out for a few more slow miles, and I finished up with 19 on the day. Not especially happy about the abdomen muscle situation, not too happy that I didn't get those last T sessions in, but it was solid mileage and as good as it was going to get, so I will have to be satisfied with that.

The weather is meant to improve over the rest of the week, so at least that part should be easier. Going to have to take a day to let these lower abdomen muscles cool it. Because I have a half-marathon next Sunday, I'm going to switch Q workouts for the week -- do the longy-long on Wednesday I think, and then use the race as the long T workout.