Week 6 in my marathon training went alright. If you want to follow my progress from the beginning, you can find previous weeks here: Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, Week 4, Week 5. The way this plan is scheduled is to have 2 hard weeks, and then a cutback week. This week was a cutback week, so I thought it would feel easier than the past couple weeks, but that didn't really turn out to be true.
Monday is always a cross training day, and this week I chose to swim. I meant to go in the morning before I headed off to campus, but I didn't wake up early enough, so I ended up having to go at 5 pm. This was a disaster! The pool is only open from 5-7 in the evenings, and it was insanely crowded. There were 7 people in my lane!! I am very comfortable in the water, and consider myself a good swimmer, but I was so anxious during this entire swim because of the amount of people. I intended to swim at least a mile (~1650 meters), but I ended up calling it quits after 1500 meters. I'm totally ok with that, and it still was a full half hour of swimming. Plus, I often play racquetball on Mondays, and while I don't think I play hard enough to consider it cross training, it does complement my other cross training well. :)
Tuesday had a 3 mile run on the schedule. I ran this with a heart rate monitor, and tried to stay under 155 bpm. I did well until the end, which makes sense because it was rather warm/humid outside. I went a little slower than a normal 3 mile run, 10:35 pace, but this reminded me that I need to keep easy runs easy even if they are short.
Wednesday I was scheduled to run 5 miles. This was a pretty rough run only because I felt like I had to use the bathroom the entire time. Ugh! I was able to stop at a Walmart around 3.25 miles, and then I felt much better. Feeling like you 'gotta go' is one of the worst feelings ever during a run! Also, the weather during this run including 100% humidity and was followed by a huge storm.
Thursday was another 3 miler, and I decided to bring Nova along with me. This was a rather uneventful run that ended up being around 9:52 minutes/mile.
Friday was schedule to be rest day, but I did go to the co-rec and go rock climbing for a bit. I have been wanting to get back into rock climbing (we used to go about weekly), but just haven't made it a priority recently. Because the co-rec is relatively empty in the summer, I figured I should try to go at least once a week before it is insanely crowded again in the fall. I haven't been climbing in so long that my hands and forearms were completely dead after 15 minutes. :-/
On Saturday, I was supposed to do 6 pace miles. As I have mentioned before, my county is running a 5k race series throughout the summer. If you complete 3 races, you get a t-shirt that says "I Run This County". Pretty silly, but I was majorly excited about it. :) I had missed the race on the 4th of July, so my last chance to complete a 3rd race was on Saturday at the Pun'kin Vine Fair 5k. The Pun'kin Vine Fair is our county fair (a great county fair, if I do say so myself), and this race has been held during the fair for the last few years. I am going to do a race recap in the next couple days, so I don't want to spoil too much, but I was able to break 25 minutes! :) So happy. :) I then ran another mile around the fairgrounds to try to rack up some more mileage for the day. We went kayaking afterwards, but when I got back to my parents, I ran the two extra miles that I needed to do to reach my 6 mile total for the day.
Sunday had 9 miles on the schedule. This was a cutback in terms of long runs (I ran 12 miles last Sunday), so I was hoping it would be a nice, easy run with no issues. I woke up later than I wanted, and had a yummy breakfast of whole wheat pancakes with peanut butter. I was working on a paper for my advisor while letting my food digest, when I saw it was going to rain soon. I didn't have time to fit my run in before the rain, so I decided to mow the lawn. While I was mowing, a migraine developed (I get an aura, it looks like multicolored light in the middle of my vision).
I have had about 10 migraines in my life, and they are awful. :( I finished mowing the front lawn (this was a somewhat insane thing to do, since I couldn't really even see where the mowed/non-mowed line was, but I kept hoping it would go away), and came inside to try to sleep away the rest of the migraine. After laying in bed with my head throbbing and feeling nauseous for about a half hour, I was finally able to fall asleep...and I slept for about 2.5 hours! I still had a slight headache when I woke up, but at least the nausea and weird vision problems were gone. I drank some water, had a snack, then prepared to go on my long run.
I felt alright for the first 2 miles of the run, but then I just felt very run down and hot. It wasn't super hot out, but it was rather humid, which was definitely affecting me. I guess between running hard the day before and being sick in the morning, my body just wasn't in prime shape for running. I got through the run though, with several walk breaks and a stop at my favorite place along my run.
Logically, I know that bad runs are going to happen from time to time, but they are just so mentally defeating! Bleh!
Overall, the week wasn't bad. Since it was a cutback week, I had slightly lower mileage than the past couple weeks: 26.2 miles. Basically I took a week to run a marathon. :-| Ha, that is a scary thought for now...hopefully over the next 12 weeks I can make running a marathon in one go seem more feasible. :) Stay tuned for my race report!
Do any of you train with HR? Are you strict about keeping your HR under certain values?
Have you ever had a migraine? Can we just agree that they are the worst things ever?
Monday is always a cross training day, and this week I chose to swim. I meant to go in the morning before I headed off to campus, but I didn't wake up early enough, so I ended up having to go at 5 pm. This was a disaster! The pool is only open from 5-7 in the evenings, and it was insanely crowded. There were 7 people in my lane!! I am very comfortable in the water, and consider myself a good swimmer, but I was so anxious during this entire swim because of the amount of people. I intended to swim at least a mile (~1650 meters), but I ended up calling it quits after 1500 meters. I'm totally ok with that, and it still was a full half hour of swimming. Plus, I often play racquetball on Mondays, and while I don't think I play hard enough to consider it cross training, it does complement my other cross training well. :)
Tuesday had a 3 mile run on the schedule. I ran this with a heart rate monitor, and tried to stay under 155 bpm. I did well until the end, which makes sense because it was rather warm/humid outside. I went a little slower than a normal 3 mile run, 10:35 pace, but this reminded me that I need to keep easy runs easy even if they are short.
Wednesday I was scheduled to run 5 miles. This was a pretty rough run only because I felt like I had to use the bathroom the entire time. Ugh! I was able to stop at a Walmart around 3.25 miles, and then I felt much better. Feeling like you 'gotta go' is one of the worst feelings ever during a run! Also, the weather during this run including 100% humidity and was followed by a huge storm.
 |
| One of three huge branches that broke in our neighborhood due to the storm |
Thursday was another 3 miler, and I decided to bring Nova along with me. This was a rather uneventful run that ended up being around 9:52 minutes/mile.
 |
| Nova on the hunt for rabbits |
Friday was schedule to be rest day, but I did go to the co-rec and go rock climbing for a bit. I have been wanting to get back into rock climbing (we used to go about weekly), but just haven't made it a priority recently. Because the co-rec is relatively empty in the summer, I figured I should try to go at least once a week before it is insanely crowded again in the fall. I haven't been climbing in so long that my hands and forearms were completely dead after 15 minutes. :-/
On Saturday, I was supposed to do 6 pace miles. As I have mentioned before, my county is running a 5k race series throughout the summer. If you complete 3 races, you get a t-shirt that says "I Run This County". Pretty silly, but I was majorly excited about it. :) I had missed the race on the 4th of July, so my last chance to complete a 3rd race was on Saturday at the Pun'kin Vine Fair 5k. The Pun'kin Vine Fair is our county fair (a great county fair, if I do say so myself), and this race has been held during the fair for the last few years. I am going to do a race recap in the next couple days, so I don't want to spoil too much, but I was able to break 25 minutes! :) So happy. :) I then ran another mile around the fairgrounds to try to rack up some more mileage for the day. We went kayaking afterwards, but when I got back to my parents, I ran the two extra miles that I needed to do to reach my 6 mile total for the day.
Sunday had 9 miles on the schedule. This was a cutback in terms of long runs (I ran 12 miles last Sunday), so I was hoping it would be a nice, easy run with no issues. I woke up later than I wanted, and had a yummy breakfast of whole wheat pancakes with peanut butter. I was working on a paper for my advisor while letting my food digest, when I saw it was going to rain soon. I didn't have time to fit my run in before the rain, so I decided to mow the lawn. While I was mowing, a migraine developed (I get an aura, it looks like multicolored light in the middle of my vision).
 |
| This is similar to what my migraine auras look like |
I have had about 10 migraines in my life, and they are awful. :( I finished mowing the front lawn (this was a somewhat insane thing to do, since I couldn't really even see where the mowed/non-mowed line was, but I kept hoping it would go away), and came inside to try to sleep away the rest of the migraine. After laying in bed with my head throbbing and feeling nauseous for about a half hour, I was finally able to fall asleep...and I slept for about 2.5 hours! I still had a slight headache when I woke up, but at least the nausea and weird vision problems were gone. I drank some water, had a snack, then prepared to go on my long run.
I felt alright for the first 2 miles of the run, but then I just felt very run down and hot. It wasn't super hot out, but it was rather humid, which was definitely affecting me. I guess between running hard the day before and being sick in the morning, my body just wasn't in prime shape for running. I got through the run though, with several walk breaks and a stop at my favorite place along my run.
 |
| This water fountain saves my life frequently (as do the bathrooms!) |
Overall, the week wasn't bad. Since it was a cutback week, I had slightly lower mileage than the past couple weeks: 26.2 miles. Basically I took a week to run a marathon. :-| Ha, that is a scary thought for now...hopefully over the next 12 weeks I can make running a marathon in one go seem more feasible. :) Stay tuned for my race report!
Do any of you train with HR? Are you strict about keeping your HR under certain values?
Have you ever had a migraine? Can we just agree that they are the worst things ever?
Oh no, that gotta go feeling is THE WORST, glad you found a Walmart!
ReplyDeleteWay to go pushing through on the long run. Those days just make you mentally stronger!
I like knowing my heart rate for reference but I don't really actively try to fit it within a certain range. I won't look at it during most runs, I just like to look at the data at the end!
I feel the same way about HR...mostly I like to review it after I run. I actually just ordered a Garmin 235 which has an optical HR monitor, so I guess I'll be getting a lot more HR data in the future! :)
DeleteSorry to hear about your migraine! I have never had one but they sound awful.
ReplyDeleteSometimes i wear a HRM, but I don't pay attention to it too much. Sometimes it can be helpful when Im trying to make sure I keep my easy runs really easy.
Yeah I think the best use of HRM for me is just to make sure I'm running easy enough. When it's hot/humid I don't think I slow down enough, and monitoring my HR helps me keep track of that. :)
Delete