Week 11 / Friday Frazzles

I can’t believe it’s Friday already. I’m totally frazzled; the week has flown by and I have accomplished very little on my to-do list. I did, however, get one killer run in on Wednesday which I don’t mind bragging about: 7x 1 mile repeats. Yep – SEVEN 1 mile repeats!!!!! I woke up that morning to a typical springtime-in-the-Rockies snowstorm that dumped 12” of the thick, wet, white stuff, which school officials deemed too torturous to drive on – and thus was my first snow day off work this school year! SWEEEEET! But to back up a couple days, I was a tad sore from my ½ in Atlanta on Monday so didn’t run. Plus, it’s hard to rack up many miles running up and down the aisle of an airplane. Tuesday I popped over to the gym and cranked out a pathetic 3 miles at some ungodly 12 … or 19 minute mile….not sure which and it really didn’t matter; they were just recover miles, or as some like to call them: junk miles. I don’t like that term much because I think sometimes a few plodding-along-at-a-snail’s-pace miles help you recovery quicker by shaking out the lactic acid, but I can understand why some like to use it. Anyway, followed that killer run with some sorry attempt at some core work. Thought about swimming laps but didn’t. Does that count for at least partial swim points? I am so behind in swimming; I’ll take whatever I can get! So lame Tuesday workout and a Wednesday Armageddon snow day left me hitting my treadmill feeling pretty pumped for some intervals. The great thing about not having a plan is that I have nothing to follow – which is the whole point of not having a plan. I came up with that all by myself, I’m such a genius. I’ve missed so much training so a plan right now is rather ridiculous with the few remaining weeks to Boston (more on that in a sec). I’m on the “get up and see how you feel and run accordingly” plan. I like it. I knew I wanted (needed) to do some speed work so I just took off on the treadmill (before I get treadmill bashing (haha) comments, let’s look at this picture again guys….TONS of snow = not happy, dry tracks sporting less than 12” of snow around town). I start running and think in my head I did 10x800’s @ 7:03 for Razz’s 6.66 miler race two weeks earlier (which, btw, I came in 4th. Yes, 4th. No autographed nothing, no name printed in highly publicized running publications, no sponsorships, not even a medal…..*sigh*) so I wanted to see if this round I could either 1) up the pace a tad or 2) run a couple extra 800’s. So I take off at 6:58 to see how it feels. Felt great. So great, in fact that once I reach the 800 mark, I decide to go farther and attempt mile repeats. Man, it feels good not to have a plan and doing what feels right at the moment! Finish the first one and I feel so good I decide to speed up the pace a bit to 6:53. #2 down, feeling good. #3 @ 6:49 and this pace is where I held them for the following two. If you can follow all my numbers I’ve babbled off, I’ve now done 5x1 milers. Feeling really good, might as well cram all my missed Boston speed work into one kill-me workout so I up the pace to 6:44 and blast through two more. 7x1 mile repeats all under 7 min/mile and the last two at 6:44. YEAH, that should have killed some excess body fat!! Too bad I couldn’t use THAT run for Razz’s virtual race, I’m certain I’d move up a spot or two – the over-achiever girl I am and all!! Yesterday I was back at the gym for another lame 3-miler topped off with a pretty BA core and weight training workout that has my shoulders a wee-bit unhappy today. I consider any wt workout where muscles are somewhat sore the next day a success. An easy run today and a 22er this weekend and that should get my mileage back up in the 40’s….which is still considerably less than where I wanted it to be when this little Boston project all started 14 weeks ago, but I can’t go from 30 miles to 55 in a week’s time without a high potential of injury so I’m happy with this.

I got to thinking about my remaining no-Boston-plan and the taper. Jilly and the taper usually occur 3 weeks out. I’ve been known to go a tad less when I only had 8 weeks between my last two marathons and hadn’t racked up the miles in between much, and this worked really well for me. Well, it’s not like I’ve actually hit record high mileage this training period (or lack thereof training period); I’ve actually felt like I’ve been on a perpetual 2 month taper…. so I’m not really going to taper this time around. No gasps from the audience, please…I mean not taper in the sense of a typical reduce-your-mileage-in-half-each-week taper. I’m going to do a 22-mile run Sunday; a friend has offered to run part of it with me (I think he wants to keep an eye on me, he must be thinking I’m going to cheat and cut it short, like I threatened since I’m actually dreading this run with a passion) and that will be it for the “long” long run. From there I’ll figure it all out with some quality runs next week and the week after and leave the last week before Boston to just get the legs ready to run and the body full of glycogen. Woohoo… I can’t believe it’s THAT time already!

Okay, so it’s officially allergy season. I’m dying here. I’m sitting in my office at work unable to breath because I forgot to load up on antihistamines or 7 other nasal cleansing things I’m taking. Ugh. 2:30 when I leave work can’t come soon enough.

I’m off for spring break next week – yes! Here’s my goals for the week off:
- Run well.
- Sleep well.
- Eat well.
- Buy stock in Kleenex and Zyrtec.
- Figure out how to upload (download?) my Garmin data off my watch (I’ve only had the thing for 11 months…one can’t be bogged down with too much too soon!!)
- Figure out how to use get the $ key to work on my Blackberry (I’ve only had this since Christmas).
- Work on my resume for a friend who’s promised me a high 6-figure job (ahahhha, yeah, I wish).
- Read blogs.
- Have fun with my kiddos.
That’s it. Nothing more!! I’m going to try not to clean any bathrooms even, though I’ll probably cave by Thursday….I have twin 14-year-olds after all!

Oh, and this just out: Balloon Boy’s dad is out of prison. What a winner that one is.

Here’s last week’s stats that I never got posted earlier this week:

Week 11 2010:
Week’s Running totals: 31.21
Running Total for 2010: 459.41
Weight training: 1
Atlanta ING Half Marathon: 1, Time: 1:46:05

Happy Running Weekend!!