On October 8th, I will be running the 40th Chicago Marathon as part of team Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Monday

After bragging last week about not missing a Monday, I missed a Monday. I traded my rest day for Monday after not sleeping very well and having super sore legs.

Tuesday

I cannot begin to tell you how happy I was to only see 4 miles on the schedule this week. My speed workout was 200m fartleks. If you’re like me, you’re probably wondering what in the world that means. Fartlek is a Swedish term that means “speed play”. Thanks Google. I really liked this workout and it went by so fast!

1 mile warm up
200 meters
30 second recovery
x 12
1 mile cool down

I couldn’t bring myself to put in my target pace as 7:45-8:15 because I didn’t truly believe that I could pull off paces that started with a 7. Once I got out there, I aimed for this pace, but my watch thought I was going for 8-8:30 so I heard the “slow down” beep a few times. My paces ranged from 7:51-8:18. and I only went over 8:15 for two splits. Now I just need to reflect this when planning for my future workouts.

Wednesday

I rode on the spin bike and read for class.

Thursday

This was supposed to be another consistent tempo run and I thought it was going to be easy since it was only 4 miles, but it was the toughest run of the week. My splits were 10:31, 10:05, 10:14, and 10:11 but I struggled through every mile. It was crazy humid and I was spent.

After work, I headed back to the Y for piyo! It felt so good to stretch and get a good strength workout in.

Friday

Rest day!

Saturday

The schedule called for 10 miles on Saturday. It was nice to only run 10 miles which wee joked about it all week. We ran in our neck of the woods again, which meant I could sleep until 4:35am! The run was good, but really humid and then hot once the sun came up. We walked a little bit during the last few times, but we got it done!

Sunday

I slept in on Sunday and put off my run all day since we were hanging out with friends and doing stuff around the house. I was planning to meet some of the girls at 5pm for our run, but of course it was raining. I opted for 4 miles on the treadmill at home. I am usually really bad about working out at home, but I got it done. After dragging all day long, I actually felt so much better.

Since our mileage dropped this week, I went into the week thinking it was going to the easy. I was very wrong. Coming off 18 miles on Saturday was hard and the cutback week was definitely needed. I struggled more this week than I expected.

On October 8th, I will be running the 40th Chicago Marathon as part of team Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Monday

I’ve been going strong with my Monday workouts. I hopped on the spin bike again at the Y and continued to read for class.

Tuesday

It was another speed work day with a total of six miles. I tried a new workout and did well, but not great.

1 mile warm up
800m
90 second recovery
repeat 6 times
1.3 mile cool down

My target pace for the 800s were 8:00-8:30 and my splits were 8:02, 8:18, 8:28, 8:29, 8:44, 8:38. I hit the first four and missed the last two. I did a good job of running on each of my 90 second recovery splits though so I was pleased with the workout overall.

Wednesday

Rest day!

Thursday

I attempted another marathon pace tempo run and didn’t do well for the second week in a row. My splits were 10:38, 9:54, 10:17, 10:53, 10:43, definitely not consistent! My goal for this coming week is to hit all of my tempo miles within 10-10:10.

Friday

Heather and I caught up while we rode the spin bikes at the Y.

Saturday

The much anticipated long run was here. I picked up Michelle at 4am and headed to Oviedo to get on the trail. The first group started at 4:45am and we did 4 miles before heading back to meet up with the rest of the group. Once we were all there, we got on the trail to go out and back for the next 14 miles. After our first 4 miles, it was hard to get into the swing of it. The trail is great since it’s shaded, but it’s also pretty boring. We finally got into our groove at some point in the run. Our first check point was at McDonald’s so we had a potty and water break. Afterwards, we pressed on until our turnaround point where we still had 7 miles to go. We stopped at McDonald’s again which was good since my Camelbak was completely empty. Plain, ice cold water tasted so good at that point. We headed back, chugged along, and finished out our run. I ran 18 miles! I was certainly feeling it by that point, but overall it was a great run.

Sunday

I slept in and met up with Michelle and Amanda for 5 recovery miles. We ran, talked, and did a little bit of walking. It was good to get my legs moving as much as I didn’t want to.

I am looking forward to shorter runs this week!

On October 8th, I will be running the 40th Chicago Marathon as part of team Ronald McDonald House Charities.

Monday

I was able to go to the spin class at the Y on Monday since I had some extra time in the morning because the kids didn’t need to be dropped off at camp. There were only three of us in class due to the holiday and class was hard! My legs were so heavy after my weekend of running and piyo, but it felt great to start the week with a good sweat.

Tuesday

For the 4th of July, I headed out to run an overpass with the girls for our hills workout. We were able to start a little later at 6am since no one had to go to work. Our hills workout was one mile warm-up, four miles of hills, and one mile cool down. I absolutely crushed this workout! It was hard, but I felt so good afterwards. My pace was also considerably faster than I expected it to be. My splits were: 10:03, 9:06, 9:44, 9:33, 9:32, 10:00.

Afterwards, we took a family trip to the Y and I did some strength training (arms and abs).

Wednesday

Rest day! But I’m also calling it a cardio day based on how much we walked after the Metallica concert at midnight.

Thursday

I opted to sleep in on Thursday morning since I didn’t get into bed until almost 1:00am. I headed to the Y after work to get in my 5 miles. Running on the treadmill is certainly not as fun as running with friends, but I did a fast 5 miles while I listened to a podcast.

I did run into these ladies after they finished piyo!

Friday

I met Heather at the Y for some time on the spin bike. I hadn’t seen her all week so we caught up while getting our workout in for the day.

Saturday

Our long run on Saturday was from Oviedo to Winter Springs on the Cross Seminole Trail. My alarm went off at 4:10am and I was out of the house by 4:30am. It was so great to run in a different part of town and I just love the trail. We got in 14 miles! This was my longest run EVER! The last couple of miles ended up being tempo at a faster pace since Michelle had to get back to go home. Surprisingly, I was able to do it and it felt good. Painful, but good.

Sunday

I had 4 miles on the schedule for my recovery run on Sunday. I ran 1 mile, then picked up the rest of the crew for a family fun run. I pushed Crosby’s in the stroller for 2 miles and we stopped at Starbucks to get coffees for later. I ran the last mile without pushing the stroller. It was so hot and a hard run, but I was thankful to have some great company!