I forgot (aka didn’t make time) to blog last week’s progress but my runs went pretty well. Had a tempo run and a nine miler with some fartleks. Nothing crazy to report there. Also last week I made a choice… I’m planning to bump my half-marathon up to a full marathon in April! I picked up the Beginner-Intermediate Marathon Training Plan from Sage Running but I’m not going to start it until January, I think. Alternatively I may start it now and just run through it twice or repeat some of the weeks. I will decide in about two weeks when I finish the Free Aerobic Base Building Plan.
Overall this week went really well. I hit 35 miles for the week and broke 90 miles for the month already. I’m on track for my first 100 mile month ever! My speed and endurance are trending up and I don’t get fatigued on the long runs anymore like I used to. I have some more work to do on strengthening supporting muscle groups but once I nail that down I should be pretty steady.
I’ve also been trying to focus on getting more sleep. Last Sunday I crashed due to exhaustion following my easy four mile recovery. This week I was able to average around 6.5 hours each night (according to my fitbit) which is an increase over my 5:45 and 6:15 the weeks prior.
Tuesday
Started the week off with an easy seven miles. Nothing too crazy here. Felt good coming off of the rest day and didn’t want to run the minimum suggested mileage for the week so I ran the seven over the six. This will be a PR for mileage in a week so why not add another? I had one slower mile at ~9:40 but the rest were all between 9:06 and 9:32. My easy pace has been getting a bit faster from the previous weeks and averages around 9:15 to 9:30 most days now.
Wednesday
Wednesday I wanted to run a stead 9:00 pace for my easy four with my heart rate staying below 160bpm. I did hit 162bpm at the end but the average was 155bpm. My original goal for the half-marathon in April was to finish under 2 hours so a 9:00/mile pace would give that to me. However, since I still have a lot of time left I’ll break that goal but this was a nice slightly faster easy run for practice.
I found some ankle and feet strengthening exercises that I decided to try out because I’ve been having some ankle pain. Starting on Wednesday I decided to do some before bed and in the morning and it seems to help so far.
Thursday
Nothing special here - just an easy six.
Friday
Another easy four in prep for Saturday’s long run. Nothing too crazy - just keeping my heart rate under 160 again. I did have a peak earlier on because of some headwind but then it steadied out after I finished that leg of the run.
Saturday
Saturday was the big run for the week. Not only was it my third nine miler ever but it also had the last four at tempo. This run pushed me a lot harder than any of the others so far. Nine miles is still a lot for me and then bumping it up at the end was tough but rewarding. Due to some headwind my sixth mile (first of the tempo) was 8:54 but I steadily increase my speed with the last mile being 8:21 pace. My goal going out was to hit between 8:30 and 8:45 so I was a little above where I wanted to be.
I definitely am not at a place where I could run 8:30 pace for a half-marathon but I’m getting a lot better.
Sunday
Sunday’s easy four was just a slow, easy jog. We kept the pace around 10:30 the entire time and my heart rate was around 140bpm. Made sure to really use this as a recovery going into tomorrow’s rest day.