Week 7: 21.5 miles

WEEK SEVEN!! It just hit me that the half marathon is in less than 2 weeks; I scheduled my training to last 9 weeks! Eeek! I'm actually super proud of myself for (mostly) sticking to the training schedule. Yes, I skipped a lot of the cross-train days. But I've definitely become a distance runner, and that's something I never thought I'd become. In fact, even when I was consistently running races in the 2nd half of college, I never considered myself a runner at all. When I go for "runs" I consider then more "jogs" than anything else. But now I think I'm admitting to myself that by running 3+ times a week, with long runs upwards of 10 miles, I've become a runner despite myself. Go figure.

Sun Apr 11: rest

Tues Apr 13: 45min hill run on treadmill, max speed 7.0mph, max incline 5.0. Approx 4.5 miles. This totally kicked my ass. Treadmills are so boring when you do more than 30 minutes.

Wed Apr 14: 5 hour rehearsal for our senior musical, including about 1 hour of dancing

Thurs Apr 15: 1 hour dance rehearsal, followed by 55 min on a treadmill (~5min walking). Covered about 5.5 miles, avg speed about 6.5mph

Fri Apr 16: 1 hour dance rehearsal

Sat Apr 17: fight scene practice. This included doing some tumbling, which I haven't really done in 5 years. I was exhausted afterwards, and I'm STILL SORE.

Sun Apr 18: 11.5 miles in DC! Eric & I ran from his current apartment to our new neighborhood, then got lost and got in a fight about my getting mad about getting lost, and then made up and ran through Rock Creek Park back to Georgetown, where we stopped for some Iceberry (Pinkberry wannabe) before jogging the last 1 mile home. We walked about 1 mile total (mostly while fighting, hee). We were out for about 2.5 hours and I think a solid 2 hours of that was spent running.


I think we're officially ready to taper and run the half! Hooray!

Week 6: 20 miles

The beginning of week 6 was spent in DC. I took an 8-hour train back to Pittsburgh on Tuesday, and jumped right back into the lazy life that is vacation month... that is, utter morning freedom followed by evening rehearsals that stretch late into the night.

Apr 5: 45min mod - we ended up running about 1.5mi in 12 minutes, then walked a little over 2.6mi home. We were tired from the long weekend run in Kansas.

Apr 7: 50min easy - did about 50min on a treadmill at 6.0-7.0 pace. Probably about 5.5mi total

Apr 10: 10mi conv - went to Frick Park and ran trails. I thought there was a 9-mi trail there (there's a trail called "Nine Mile Run"), but there wasn't (it's not finished). So I ran for 1:50:56, with two long walking breaks of 3min or so due to the INTENSE hills and the chewing of the Luna Moons (see below), figuring I had covered 10 miles in 1:40 or so. When I came home I looked up the trail guide and sure enough I covered just over 10 miles. Annoyingly, the trails aren't able to be entered on Gmaps Pedometer or Map My Run because they aren't on the city streets, and the satellite view is dense with trees. Grr!

Anyway, on Saturday's long run I tried these Luna Moons, which are electrolyte replacement in chewy gummi form. They were gross and stuck to my teeth. I did not like. I had to walk for like 5 extra minutes as I chewed and ran my tongue over my teeth and washed away the sticky sweetness with what little Gatorade was left in my bottle. I think I'll stick with Gu.

Week 5: 19 miles

This was a week spent in DC, with a weekend trip to Kansas City. One of the revelations I've made during this training has been that travel does not mean a vacation from running. It may mean that cross-training is harder to do (no gym, no time or space for DVD workouts), but running is free, and as long as I have my legs and some pavement, I'm good to go.

Mar 28: rest
Mar 29: 45min mod - ~4.5 mi seriously uphill-then-downhill run from Rosslyn to Clarendon and back. Took ~43 minutes.
Mar 31: 50min easy - ran approx 5mi on the treadmill with speeds 5.0mph - 7.0mph, 5.5 total including walking for cool down.
Mar 31, Apr 1: walked a LOT on the apartment hunt. I think we walked approx 5 miles per day.
Apr 3: 9mi conv - ~9.1 mi loop in flat, sunny Kansas. Total time: 1:36:57, which included a 5:21 break after 6.5 miles.

I was SUPER proud of us for the 9-miler. We could have easily skipped this week's long run and chalked it up to an extremely busy week of birthdays, Passover, apartment hunting, and traveling. But we did it, and we did it well.

But I was starving for 3 days and my legs felt like lead, I'll say that much :)