Half Marathon PR Quest – Week 3

A few days ago I told you I felt like I was full of excuses for not working out, since Roman’s sitter was on vacation. It really threw me for a loop. I only have her part-time, because my hours are early and I don’t have a full-time schedule, but those mornings for working and running are, apparently, incredibly necessary for me to feel like a normal human.

Despite not getting in much (okay, not ANY) strength training this week, I at least managed to squeeze in my running workouts. I had a race planned yesterday, a 4 miler in Central Park (you can read the full recap here) and my coach planned the week as sort of a mini-taper.

What I love most about being coached one-on-one is the attention to detail like this. I had a speed workout planned for Wednesday, but then a recovery run and a shake-out run before the race Sunday. My usual week would have an extra tempo or lactate threshold run and a long run thrown in there, so at least my crappy week of scheduling fell in a light week of running!

Monday: Off. Planned to strength train, foiled by a sudden refusal by Roman to take an afternoon nap.

Tuesday: Off. Planned to do a little yoga, derailed by Roman deciding yesterday’s lack of nap seemed to go well, why don’t we try that again?

Wednesday: 9 minute run on treadmill. Of course, it was going to be an interval workout, but I got the call from the gym childcare: “Roman has been crying since you left and we can’t calm him down, so…”

I texted my coach and he said he was okay with me moving it to the next day, when I knew I could get outside and do it.

Thursday: Did the planned interval workout – 10 minute warm up, then 3 x 5 minute speed repeats with 1 minute recovery intervals. Actually, I wrote the planned interval workout on my hand, then tried to work out after my fourth repeat why the workout was taking so long, to realize I was only supposed to run THREE 5 minute repeats. Oops.

Friday: 30 min recovery run at 8:20 min pace.

Saturday: 20 min shake-out run at 8:30 pace.

Sunday: 4 mile race. I felt good, I’d actually had a decent night’s sleep Saturday night and I was excited for this race – I love running in Central Park, but I do it so rarely. I was really happy with the way I paced myself and of course that I ran another PR! (Here’s the recap). I can’t explain enough how surprising it is to me to be setting personal records again. My last PR for this race before starting to train with Team All American was back in 2008, just to give a better reference of what a surprise these new times have been.

I checked out a race time predictor, where you can enter a recent race time and get your prediction for other distances. Based on my 4 mile time yesterday, it predicts I could run a half marathon in 1:48:11. Then I used another predictor (because I like to see the spread) which has me finishing in 1:50:48. I feel like that puts me right on track for my goal time of 1:45 in June.

Total Miles for Week: 15.4

There was definitely a time when that low mileage would have freaked me out and made me worry that I was failing with my training. But I’m running smart, I’m clearly doing something right to be able to PR a race and I’m learning to trust the process.

Who I’m running for:

David’s House offers support and somewhere to stay for families of children receiving treatment through the Children’s Hospital at Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center. It was founded by the family of David Cyr, a little boy who passed away at age 5, after battling cancer for 3 1/2 years. David lived close to the hospital. When he realized that other families couldn’t go home to sleep and shower and eat – that they had to sleep in chairs, in hospital rooms – he wanted his parents to invite them to come stay at his house. After his death, his family founded David’s House, to realize his dream. Families can sleep, shower, relax, prepare meals and have one less thing to worry and think about while their little ones are being treated nearby. I’m proud to be running 13.1 miles for this charity.