Here's the schedule I'm trying to stick to:
Monday: Swim
Tuesday: Speed work
Wednesday: Swim
Thursday: Temp
Friday: Cross train or Rest
Saturday: Long run
Sunday: Wild card (Long run if not done on Saturday/Cross train if not done on Friday/Rest if have not had a rest day)
On paper it looks great. In life, it will work probably the majority of the time but definitely not all the time. When your husband is also a runner and is training for an ultra at the same time as you are training for a marathon, and you have two kids' activities to work around, plus random stuff that comes up, there is a lot of schedule-juggling going on. I work at night on Wednesdays so I'm able to do a workout during the day while the kids are at school and my husband is working; I get off work at 3:30 on Tuesday afternoons, which gives me 1.5 hours to get a workout in before my husband is off work and the kids are picked up; and on Mondays I go to swim practice before work. So that's three days a week our schedules are not competing. I'd like to make better use of my Thursday morning so that the evening is totally free for the kids and for my husband's run--but that is a work in progress. I have built some flexibility into the schedule on the weekends. Friday is a scheduled rest or cross-training day so that if something happens and I don't fit in one of the runs I can always do it on Friday and push back the long run to Sunday; and if something happens and I can't do the long run on Saturday, I can always do it on Sunday. Having a schedule makes me feel better-organized and helps keep me on track--but I definitely do not insist on sticking to the schedule at all costs--there are more important things in life than my training schedule: )
So here's how the "schedule" went down this week:
Monday
This particular Monday I was headed out of town for two days, so I altered my schedule a little to make sure I got my speed workout in. I decided to do my speed work Monday morning before leaving town instead of going to swim practice, because it was likely that I would not get to do any type of physical activity on Tuesday due to travel and other activities.
Prescribed workout: 4 x 800 @ 6:36 (2 min. RI)
Actual: 4 x 800 @ 6:36 (2 min. RI)
I did this workout on the treadmill due to really cold temps--it was 5 degrees when I drove to the gym!--and the fact that it was still dark outside. Dark + cold is not a good recipe for speed, for me. (Note: While I know I am not doing myself any favors by running on the treadmill and it is my absolute preference to run outside, sometimes outside is just not the best option.) This workout went off without a hitch : )
Tuesday
I got home from my trip around 4:00 p.m., and after un-packing the car and getting settled it was about 4:30. Tuesday is our crazy day--Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and dance class all happen on Tuesdays between 6:00 and 8:00--so I just squeezed in a 30 minute strength/core workout.
Wednesday
Normally I would swim on Wednesday, but with the kids home for a snow day and no childcare at the pool I had to be flexible. I did a 45-minute spin on my bike and a quick 15 minutes of strength/core.
Thursday
Thursday's workout was a tempo run. This ended up quite the comical dilemma. The roads/sidewalks were not cleared from the snow, so the run was going to have to be indoors if I wanted to hit the tempo pace. Running inside was not the dilemma--the question was, do the run on the treadmill, or on the indoor track?? Run in place, or run in circles? Really, it was going to be the lesser of two evils. The upside to the treadmill was that the miles would be tracked and the pace would be calculated for me. Easy peasy. Compare to the indoor track, where I would not only have to count laps, but calculate pace as I counted laps (because my Garmin doesn't get a signal in there). Which brought about this text exchange between Keith and me:
Yeah--calculating math while concentrating on running is not my strong point. So I decided I would just get on the treadmill--easy peasy!--but when I got over to the gym there were no treadmills open. Grrrr. So I texted Keith and he came over and ran the tempo with me on the indoor track. God love him! Thanks to Keith manning his cell phone in stopwatch mode, I didn't have to count laps OR calculate pace--Keith and his phone did it for me. Plus, I had company while running around in circles : ) Easy peasy--ha!
Prescribed workout: 1 easy, 5 @ 8:12, 1 easy
Actual: 1 easy, 5 @ 7:56, 1 easy
Going into this workout I was thinking that an 8:12 pace for just 5 miles sounded pretty simple...but during the first couple of miles I commented to Keith that I was feeling tired and the pace wasn't as easy as I thought! Somewhere along the way, though, I found a rhythm and we ended up way ahead of pace.
Note: 8:12 is my goal pace for the marathon. Right now, I can't imagine running another 21 miles at that pace! That thought freaks me out a little, but then I remind myself that training for a marathon is a process, and over time I will get stronger, my paces will get faster, and what once was hard will be routine. I also keep reminding myself that pre-injury I was running 20+ miles at a sub-8:00 pace--I'll get there again, I just have to stick to the plan and do the work.
Friday
Friday was kind of a bust. I didn't want to take a rest day since I only did strength/core on Tuesday, so I brought my gym bag to work with the intent of doing 10K on the elliptical either at lunch or right after work...but I forgot to pack my shoes!! Normally I would have just run home at lunch to get them, but it was smack dab in the middle of Snowpocalypse 2016 so there was no running back home real quick. I was really annoyed with myself and for a hot second considered getting on the elliptical anyway in my Sorel boots...but then reigned myself in. No harm in missing one cross-training workout, right? (Well, that's what I told myself anyway since there was nothing to be done about it.) So Friday ended up being a rest day after all, due to dinner plans and other random miscellanea.
Saturday
On Friday I had already decided to wait until Sunday to run my 15 miles, due to road conditions, in hopes things would get more clear by Sunday and I would be able to do the run outside. Since I self-sabotaged my elliptical workout on Friday, I did it on Saturday instead of running, along with 30 minutes of strength/core.
Sunday
Unfortunately there was not as much clearing of roads as I'd hoped by Sunday. Our street was still covered in packed-down snow, as were most of the side streets in town; and the majority of the sidewalks had not been shoveled. Running loops in the middle of the plowed streets was obviously out--tempting, but out (you know, safety first and all that)--so I resigned myself to the treadmill. But since one of my running friends had indicated that one of the back roads just outside of town, Bluegrass Pike (a hot spot for runners and cyclists--you will hear me reference it a lot as it's one of my favorite running routes and one of the best places to get in a long run on the roads), was clear at least a few miles out, I decided to pack outdoor running clothes with me in the car (I was driving to the gym) and do some quick recon. If the road was clear at least three miles out, I would run out-and-backs on the Pike; if it wasn't clear for very far, I would just go on to the treadmill. I was elated to discover that Bluegrass Pike was completely clear for 6+ miles! So I dropped some water along the route, changed clothes in the car, and ran outside : ) I did a 12-mile out-and-back and finished the last three miles through an adjoining neighborhood (the neighborhood miles were a little dicey--not much clearing of streets had happened in there, unfortunately). Overall it was a great run--the sun was out, the sky was blue, and Bluegrass Pike was a beautiful winter wonderland, plus it wasn't as windy as it usually is out there, so the miles just ticked on by. The only downside happened at the end when I almost got hit by a car : \ I had to actually jump off the road into a snowbank to avoid being hit--luckily it happened with just .6 miles to go because my legs and feet were soaking wet and freezing cold afterward! Despite my near-death experience (okay, maybe that's a little dramatic), I was super happy to have gotten those miles in outside and to finish the second week of training on a good note.
Prescribed run: 15 miles @ 8:57
Actual run: 15 miles @ 8:44
I will leave you with some views of my lovely snowy run:
