Boston Training: Week 3 (And Big News!)

Last week was a big one. Sure, I hit as many miles last week as I did during Philly peak week, but more importantly, I got engaged!

On Sunday afternoon, when I largely recovered from a hangover (remnants of my running team’s holiday party the night before), my boyfriend fiancé and I went for a walk in Central Park to kill some time before dinner with some friends. As it turns out, dinner was a ruse.

As we were walking through Central Park, which was surprisingly deserted, Luke decided we should climb up on a rock for a better vantage point. We get up there and there is a little kid climbing around, but he and his father soon walk off, and after they do, Luke got down on one knee and popped the question.

I obviously said yes. I expected something was coming soon, but I didn’t expect anything this weekend, so I was blown away.

Afterward, we got some pictures in the empty park with fresh snow before walking over to our first date spot, where Luke had given them a heads up and they had a table and some bubbly ready for us.  It was a perfect evening.

It’s a good thing we both had Monday off work for MLK Jr. Day, because we needed the entire day to call around and get the word out to our families!

While I wasn’t expecting anything this weekend, I was expecting something soon because of some odd questions I’ve been getting lately, such as: “Do you think this weekend’s long run will leave you particularly tired?” You know I’m a lucky lady when my man plans to propose around my running schedule 😉

That brings me to my training, since this is a running blog, after all.

Last week wasn’t easy. It capped off a seven-week build up back to my peak mileage from the last training cycle, and it included 2.5 hard workouts.

Here’s what the plan looked like:

You know it is going to be a doozy of a week when it starts off with a 10 mile medium-long run on Monday morning! This is something new I’ve added to my schedule this cycle drawing upon the Pete Pfitzinger influence. This is a run I never mind, because I always feel great at long-run pace!

Tuesday’s run, however, was a different story. I’m just really struggling with lactate threshold workouts this cycle. My paces felt nearly impossible during this workout, so much so that I only ran 4 miles of tempo when I was originally planning on 5 miles!

I think part of my struggle with these runs is that I depend too much on my watch. So when during the first half of my first tempo mile my watch told me I was at an 8:40 min/mile pace (which was categorically wrong), I sped up. I sped up so much that I think I ended up pushing well past lactate threshold into lactate overload territory. That is obviously not good, and I paid for it. I think I need to go more on feel with this going forward.

After that failed workout on Tuesday, I totally didn’t want to get out of bed for my recovery run on Wednesday. I can tell you I’m sick of winter at this point. I don’t care if it’s cold in the morning, but just give me some sunshine! My body was definitely feeling it too. I averaged a 9:05 min/mile pace on this one, which I think is my slowest average run pace in perhaps years (because I wasn’t very good with the whole “recovery” concept in the past). I was running by heart rate, though, so I know it’s what my body needed.

Thursday I had more successful cruise intervals. I ran 6 x 1000 meters with a goal of 3:55-4:00 per interval, with a 200 meter recovery jog between intervals. In reality, I hit: 3:57 – 3:57 – 3:58 – 3:59 – 4:01 – 4:00. I struggled with the final three because the wind started to pick up, but I was pretty happy with that effort. I think I do better on the track than I do with longer tempos.

My original plan for the long run this week was 16 miles with 10 miles at goal marathon pace, but I was feeling really wiped out after being sick the prior weekend and pushing hard in two workouts this week. As such, I decided it was a good idea to cut the marathon-pace section in half.

I ran that long run with two lady friends who are looking to go sub-3 in the spring, so our marathon-paced miles looked like this: 6:53, 6:52, 6:51, 6:52, and 6:53. We were definitely consistent, but it sure didn’t feel easy!

I wrapped up the week with an easy, hung over recovery run before my week took a marked turn for the better 😀