Weekly wrap up: longest week ever edition.
Monday: Speedwork (6 x 400m) feels like it was sooooo long ago. Good thing I did a post about it because I do not remember much about that run at this point. Already discussed in a previous post.
Tuesday: 3mi recovery run on the treadmill. 1% incline. 4:30/30 intervals. 4.4 and 3.7 for speeds. Also, a schedule change for DS2's track meet meant I missed DS1's baseball game (Wednesday weather looked bad, so they moved the meet to Tuesday.) Ended up taking the puppy because we don't trust him to make it 5+ hours during the day in his crate without an accident. He came and sat with me in the grass near the finish line and did amazingly well; the start gun didn't phase him, he still listened to commands, and took a nap for the last hour. All huge wins for an 11wk old puppy!
Wednesday: 35min tempo run. I adjusted the intervals so I still had ~1mi warm-up and then more intervals for the speedup and slowdown section. Figuring out what 10:50 pace feels like is hard. My routed ended up giving me a small downhill near the end of the "sustain goal pace" section (about 6min) and I was sooooo thankful for it. I really struggled with getting my pace up, and managed 10:53 for that part. This had me super nervous for my 3mi goal-pace run.
Thursday: scheduled rest day.
Friday: 3mi @ goal-pace DS2 had a track meet, and I was parent-of-the-day at preschool in the morning, so there was no time to run. This track meet was FREEZING. White stuff was falling from the sky on the way home. It "felt like" 36 and there was about a 15mph wind with gusts. There were soooo many timing issues, this meet went way longer than it should have. Plus, the starting officials blew a heat dead for almost every event. All of the kids said they were not nice, and as a spectator, they would rush the kids up to the line (for the first heat, which is the slowest and least experienced heat) and then scold them for not knowing what they were doing. And to an extent I get it; it's not their job to teach these kids how to line up and start their race. But
then they'd explain it, get them started, and ask the next heat if anyone doesn't know how to start in a very snarky way. I took all the layers, my heated vest, blankets, gloves, and was still shivering sooo badly by the end. I even took DD's snowpants/winter coat, etc so she wouldn't get cold because I'm sure you can all imagine how horrible a cold 4yo could be at a 6+ hour meet. Heated seats for the hour drive home for the win!
Saturday: 3mi @ goal pace (10:50.) This morning was super stressful. Sooooo stressful. And 2 days in a row off killed all of my motivation (plus my period is due any day and I've been exhausted this week and falling asleep on multiple afternoons.) But I needed a 'mental health run' and this fit the bill. Originally I was going to cut this down to 2mi @ goal pace, with an additional .5mi WU and CD to get the 3mi. But I told myself to do the 2 and see how I felt before I just planned for it to be short. So I did the .5mi WU (30/30), and then paused to set up my new intervals (75/25) and que up the 178-180spm playlist. Mile 1 was about 3/4 paved, and then I got onto the dirt/gravel road I usually run on. My feet slip when I push off on this road, and I told myself I'd be OK with 11:00-11:05 considering it was 'feels like 36' with an 11mph crosswind that feels like I'm running into it no matter which direction I'm running. This mile was 10:42. Whoops! Mile 2 is all dirt road, and my form was starting to go by the end....10:57. Ugh. So I hit pause on my watch, stopped for about 60 sec. and then got back at it. I know that's not how this workout is intended to be run, but it was either pull the plug, or pause for a moment, and I know from the past the gutting out these workouts is really good for my mental training. Those miles give me skills for BB parking lot.
So here we go with mile 3. Can I find the pace? Yes. I did manage to find it and ran this one in 10:49. Yay! Those paces are knocking on the door of my 5k PR. But still, this was really hard. And that makes me nervous for July. But that's still a month and a half away, right? If I'm already pulling this off 2 weeks in, imagine where I could be in 10 more weeks!
And now I have to figure out how to juggle next week with a trip to Texas, when to do my speed work, because I don't think speedwork today, long run tomorrow, hills on Monday is a great idea.
Also, pupdate!
I really didn't know how much I needed a puppy in my life, or maybe it's just THIS puppy but I love him so much already. Like....way more than our previous dogs. Maybe because I did the research, picked the breed, found the breeder, and did all of the things I was more invested from the start or something. But ugh. He's such a good boy. (Feel free to throw this in my face in late summer when he's in full teenager mode
)
Our brooder setup for the new chicks, which we have used for 10 years because it’s so much safer an alternative to a heat lamp somehow ignited the bedding and everything caught fire. I’m stressing out about the cost to rebuild (and when in the heck we have time to do that!!) and having guilt over losing all of the chicks (the big chickens were in a different section and were all outside and they’re fine.) The heat melted the plastic on our greenhouse and the motor/wiring on the exhaust fan. Some of the wood on the back of it is scorched and will need replaced as well. But it’s just stuff. And everyone is ok. 2 of our local fire departments sent trucks and had the fire controlled within 30min of me calling. Our neighbor came down to check on us (DH was at baseball so it was just me and the 2 youngest kids) because he saw the emergency vehicles and the smoke and DH wasn’t responding to his texts. It was nice to have a somewhat familiar face around. But ugh. I’m due for a big emotional meltdown tonight.
Core workout
