Chickamauga Training: Week #16 Recap

I wouldn't be "me" without posting this way late :) I'm sure I'll be thankful for the record of this later...

Monday, October 24
Plan: Rest
Actual: Rest

It was the day after my 20-miler, Matt was getting back from Vegas and I had errands and laundry to catch up on. I was residually tired AND hungry from the day before too.

Tuesday, October 25
Plan: 5 miles
Actual: 4.25 miles

Amy and I agreed to meet after work and I was so excited to get to run with her. I just love that we can be silent or chat the entire way and the run seems to fly by no matter what. The trail was really crowded tonight and we ran for a lot of the time "single file" since it's a double track trail. We wanted to run our "loop" but it was another case of chasing daylight so we settled for a modified out and back. She carried her flashlight this time and we needed it by the end. I forgot to turn on my Garmin so I have no idea of our pace but I could tell that we had really pushed it. It felt great!

Wednesday, October 26
Plan: 6 x hill
Actual: 6 x hill plus .5 w/u and .5 c/d

I ran my usual downtown hill...it would be the last of this training cycle...and for a while...because downtown is NOT a place I will run after dark. I hate to say that and to give my city a bad rap, but it's not safe, especially since our downtown is more of a M-F, 8-6 location and not very "residential". There are some awesome lofts and condos and great restaurants, but for now, it's the reality that we deal with. Anyway...

I ran the first at a slow, steady pace, picked the middle 4 up to focus on powering up and down (using the parking meters as stride counters) and ended the way I began. I felt a little sluggish on the "down" portions, like I couldn't loosen up but I didn't wear my Garmin, so I'm not sure if it was perception or reality. As I was running back to my car close to sunset, I noticed a couple of very shady looking guys peering into the windows of closed businesses and checking the doors/pushing on the windows and it made me run a little bit faster. Something was NOT right and I didn't want to be anywhere near where I was.

Sad.

Thursday, October 27
Plan: Rest
Actual: Rest

I took Friday off work to spend some quality time with my mom before the weekend of basketball and football festivities. Since Matt works from home the majority of the time, we decided to head down to AU/OPL Thursday night to avoid traffic and to take one car. Traffic was hell getting home and then we hopped into Matt's car to continue the nightmare going south. It took us nearly 3 hours on a (slightly less than) 2 hour trip and my commute home was over an hour (75 minutes) when I would normally expect it to be 30-40. To say that I was restless and agitated when I got to my parents' was an understatement!!

Friday, October 28
Plan: 5-6 miles
Actual: 3.2 mile walk with my mom and her dog

My mom ended up having to go to work for just a couple of hours that morning and I had every intention of heading out for some solo miles while she was gone. But relaxation won. When she got back, she agreed to join me (and Ziti) for a nice walk. Beautiful clear skies, pretty leaves and comfortable temps. We did the route that we always used to walk when I was in HS or home from college "to the middle school" and "with the loops".

Saturday, October 29
Plan: 10 miles
Actual: 9.25 miles + 2 miles walk

It was a chilly morning and hard to peel myself out of the warm bed. My aunt left to do some cardio and body pump at her gym and I knew I needed to get out the door. (On a side note, I was also really glad that my Dad had given me some gloves when I saw him on Friday as they were perfect running gloves and I totally neglected to pack some for the weekend) When I initially left I thought I might run for 2 hours (1 hour out and back) but as I progressed my energy felt really low and the route I took ended up "cross country" for nearly a mile on the out and about .5 on the back. It's a locally popular road to run on but there were no sidewalks and no shoulder to speak of so I ended up running in the grass/gravel up and down some pretty challenging hills.

I ended up deciding to use a certain high profile local resident's house as my arbitrary turn around point (which I reached in 50 minutes...no not my intended destination, but yes, faster than I should be running my long run). I ate a couple of left over "pink lemonade" honey stinger chews that were hanging around in my handheld pocket but I wasn't really thirsty and drank maybe half of the water/powerade mix I had on me. I actually thought I was going to negative split the run (which shocked me as I had to walk a pretty steep incline on the death trap part of the route) but I ended up being 30 seconds positive. I tend to do a lot of "time-based" turn around runs and I really do run overall consistent pace over distance.

Sunday, October 30
Plan: Cross (choice)
Actual: Rest

We ended up heading back to Birmingham a little later than planned and by the time we picked up the dogs, ate dinner, grocery shopped, did laundry, etc it was time for Dexter (and relaxing!) I (we) always cram so much into our weekends down in Auburn between visiting family and friends, events with the University, running around, working out, late(r) nights staying up visiting, etc that by the time the end of the weekend rolls around, I am zonked!

Overall
I feel like this was really kind of a "down" week but I was constantly on the go and heading out of town on Thursday really compressed what I needed to get accomplished M-W at home.