Philly Training: Week 12/13

I’ve been slacking. Not in my running, but in my blogging.

I am now two weeks behind in my training recaps, and that is – in part – because I had something more interesting to write about last week with the Staten Island Half. So make up for it, you’ll get two weeks for the price of one with this post.

To be honest, week 12 of training really wasn’t that interesting anyway, as I was mostly tapering for the half.

Here’s what it looked like:

See, mostly boring.

My 90 minute run on Tuesday went well, that was a run commute home with a pack, but it still felt good. Wednesday was nice and easy, and Thursday I picked it up with a couple of miles at half marathon pace.

Saturday was my shortest run since March, back when I was first building up my mileage after my stress fracture. I didn’t mean for it to be that short – I planned on 3 miles – but I was enjoying a lazy morning in bed, and before I knew it, it was almost time for my pilates class and I didn’t have time for three before then.

Then, the grand finale of the week: my 1:28:17 PR at the Staten Island Half 🙂

I’m still floating on cloud nine about that…

Last week, I allowed myself a short recovery before it was back to the grind.

After a super easy 4 mile recovery run on Monday, I took Tuesday off and used that time to sleep! Then, Wednesday, it was time to shift my focus back to my fall marathon goal with some marathon-paced intervals.

I ran two sets of 4 miles at goal pace (which has crept a little bit faster since the half marathon) with a 1200 meter easy recovery between sets. And guess what? It felt surprisingly good!

I expected to feel sluggish and sore, but marathon pace felt good. Here is what I clocked out:

7:08 – 7:10 – 7:07: 7:09 – recovery – 6:59 (oops) – 7:10 – 7:06 – 7: 10

The only other notable run of the week was my long run, which I squeezed in on Friday morning as the boyfriend and I were planning on heading out of town for some good fall foliage early on Saturday morning.

The long run also went better than expected, with my pace coming in much lower than I was planning on. The result? 22 miles in 2 hours 48 minutes for a 7:38 min/mile pace. Sure, I was tired at the end, but I felt good!

This picture pretty much sums up how I feel about my training and about fall right now: