Philly Training: Week 8

This week, I came back from vacation and crashing back to reality with a lingering cold and some nasty jetlag to boot.

With my body feeling pretty run down, I made all sorts of modifications to my training plan, including replacing the workouts I had scheduled with the same number of “general aerobic” miles (a moderate-effort run per Pfitzinger).

I had a 1-mile race on Sunday, so it turns out that was probably for the best, as it was kind of a mini taper leading up to it.

To start, on Monday…I took a day off. I was still feeling really sick with a cold, and my nose was just a faucet. I went through SO. MANY. TISSUES. I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying the last full day of sightseeing though. The highlight for me was Schönbrunn, the former summer palace of the Habsburgs.

I was supposed to run six on Monday, but instead, I ran a really easy 4 miles on Tuesday morning before my flight back to the States. This was a nice run along Vienna’s Ring Road, with some great sights along the way.

On Wednesday, it was back to work, but with jetlag, it was easy to get in another easy 6.5 miles first thing in the morning what with my body saying it was time to get up at 4:15 a.m.

Thursday was supposed to be a track workout (12 x 400), but I knew that wasn’t in the cards for this week, so I pushed it off to next week and instead ran 9 general aerobic miles (again, very early in the morning, thanks to jetlag!).

To end the work week, I made the poor decision to go to spin class. It will be great to see how my performance improves after the cycling vacation, I thought. It will be easy, I thought. Boy was I wrong. That was one of the hardest 45 minutes I’ve ever suffered through. My body was NOT ready for that.

Saturday, it was time for another easy 5 miles before a beach day! Amazingly, it was my first (and likely last) beach day of the summer. It’s just been so busy with weddings and travel, I don’t know where the time went!

Then Sunday, it was time for the BIG day of the week. On tap was the 5^th Avenue Mile, a fantastic race, and a 20 mile long run to boot.

You can check out my race recap of the 5^th Avenue Mile here. (Spoiler alert: It went well!)

But a successful race was just the beginning. I still had to run home. The long way.

The first five miles felt easy enough. I eased into them, and I was back in Central Park after a decent amount of time away. I also had my first “snack” (Clif Shot Bloks) to look forward to.

The next five, I picked up the pace without thinking about it as I hit flat roads along the Hudson River. I saw two of my friends along the way who are running Berlin in a couple weeks (I’m so jealous that they are tapering!), which provided a nice distraction from the monotony of running a 20 mile long run alone.

Going into the third quarter of the run, I held my pace and again looked forward to a little snack, but I was definitely starting to feel run down and hot. Starting a long run at 9:20 a.m. is a good reminder as to why I usually get up and out the door by 7 a.m.! As it was pushing noon, I just wanted lunch and a cold drink.

The final five miles of my long run were a bit of a slog, though I kept my pace up. I got abdominal cramps twice in the final two miles and I was just so over the run.

Overall, I finished 20.2 miles in 2:36:12, a 7:44 pace. Looking back on it, that was too fast and I should have tried to rein it in a bit more, but if nothing else, it’s a confidence booster? If I can do that after running a mile PR, hopefully this marathon effort is shaping up well.

Total: 47.25 miles