You must be swift as the coursing river (as long as it's the Lazy River) - comments welcome

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Congratulations on the win well done

 

[WillRunForPizza]

May 12 - 18, 2025
5K training week 8 | 12 days until Twilight 5000
In which it's not over yet



Monday
Easy/hill strides: 6.8 miles (9:39), avg. HR 156, max 186, 65% Z1-2
Core

Okay, so I wasn't very good at easy running on this one. It was warmer than I was expecting, and clearly I should have slowed down more, but I felt fine. Oops.

Tuesday
Workout: 3 x 3 min @ CV/2 min @ 3KP/1 min @ 1MP/3 min RI + 2.2 miles steady
9.5 miles, avg. HR 164, max 194
Lower body strength




Oof. Why am I so bad at running fast?

I felt okay on the first set. The second set was hard. By the time I got to the last interval in the third set, I was absolutely dying. At first I told myself, "I can do this if I push," and then almost immediately I went, "Wait, no, no going to the well in a race week workout! I need a full well for the race!" and then I skipped the last 50 seconds of the interval. I don't know if that was the right choice, but that's what happened.

Somehow, after the three minute recovery, I eased into the steady finisher and felt like I could do that forever, though I stopped once I got back to a place with actual traffic lights and stuff. So basically, my metaphorical engine works great at medium paces, but when I try to go faster, it's like setting the gas tank on fire and boom! all gone and my legs and lungs are all exploded.

It was not the cause of my problems, but I felt kind of bloated the whole time. Possibly this was due to running about an hour after lunch because I didn't want to die during potential thunderstorms in the morning (though I normally run about an hour after breakfast and have no issues, so ). Having my rain-drenched shirt cling to my belly did not help with the bloated feeling. However, I did learn that my race shoes have good traction on wet roads, which was positive for Saturday. (There was still a chance of a wet race at that point.) Plus, the rain meant there was hardly anyone on the trail, which is always nice - especially when you're trying to dodge puddles.

Also, something weird happened somewhere with my GPS, because it has me finishing the run about four miles from where I actually finished, and there's no elevation data except for the first couple of miles. I tried correcting both the distance and elevation on Strava and that somehow made it worse. So, not particularly confident in the data here. (I've run this way enough that I can say the overall distance should be about right, but the GAP isn't at all useful, and individual intervals may be off in places.)



Wednesday
Recovery: 7.1 miles (10:35), avg. HR 149, max 158, 100% Z1-2
Upper body strength

I did a wandering thing again. I found a LOT of hills. And some unfortunately narrow sidewalks. I also learned one of the side effects of not planning your route, which is that it's hard to tell when you should turn around. This is how I ended up with 7 miles instead of 4-6. But I felt okay after the first mile.

Thursday
Core

After a harder-than-expected run on Tuesday and a longer-than-expected run on Wednesday, taking Thursday off seemed like the wisest choice. I did do my core workout, though, because core work just isn't going to do that much damage at this point. (It is possible I should have chosen a slightly easier workout. I didn't use weights, though!)

Friday
Shakeout: 3.2 miles (10:05), avg. HR 152, max 183, 79% Z1-2

Short runs do funny things to your stats.

Saturday
WU + 3.1 miles @ 5KP + CD

Race recap above. I wasn't thrilled with my performance, but it was a nice little race and cool to win.

Sunday
Easy/strides: 8.1 miles (9:26), avg. HR 153, max 175, 81% Z1-2
Yoga

Surprise! I haven't been running on Sundays, but I took Thursday off, and it occurred to me that I could just do that for the next two weeks since the Twilight 5000 is on a Saturday also.

I actually felt really good, and I ran basically the same pace on the same route as last weekend but managed to stay mostly, if not entirely, in Z2 this time. Later I thought about strength training, but I settled on a more active yoga routine instead.

Totals
Running: 6h 18m, 40.4 miles
Strength/mobility: 1h 45m
Total: 8h 3m


So I raced a 5K slower than predicted, and now Strava has made its 5K prediction...faster? I don't get it.

Coming up
The schedule is finished, but the racing is not! Less than two weeks until the Twilight 5000, and I'm just going to be making it up as I go. I'm thinking maybe threshold hills this week? We shall see.