Super fun week, with one little concern….

It’s been a great week.

I was excited about my workouts, and I have enjoyed each and every one of them, as much as I could.

Monday was fun.  Tuesday I did the workout with a friend and it was a new one to us.  It involved a lot of transition practices for Triathalons.  I’m not a Triathlete, but my friend is.  She was MUCH MUCH better at the transitions than I was.  

We giggled our way through the work out, attracting a bit of attention hopping in and out of the pool, plus we were both kind of loud about how how great we though the workout was.  I just LOVED the workout because well, it is HOT in Florida.  So any workout that involves multiple excursions into the cold pool is a winner.

With the euphoria of a great workout that was also FUN, I sent the coach man an email…

BEST WORKOUT EVER! We had so much fun! Thanks!!!

I got back:

This is a fav of mine. If you want, we can do more of them.

God bless you!

Do I ever want to do more of them. SO MUCH FUN, and really good training as well.

I saw him later that day or the next and I asked about going to 2 a days.  I really am feeling FANTASTIC.  After telling him this, he kind of looked at me and said, “Well, you are clearly having your big peak now, which I wanted you to have back in May for the Marathon”

UGH.  He apologized and explained how he had tried to time that peak, but that clearly, it came too late for my race.  On the up side, I really am enjoying my training. It pretty hard to time a peak I suppose, and especially because we don’t really know where I’m at yet.  It’s a learning process for the two of us.

Main concern right now will be for any sort of Injury.  I feel so good that I just want to do and do and do…

He cautioned me to just follow the workout plan.  After some mental gymnastics, I agreed.

This is the first time in a long long time that I have had a planned week that was challenging and I have been able so far to hit all the challenges.

  My workout buddy is taking the summer off from training for races and has dubbed her summer, “The Summer of FUN”  My Summer shall be dubbed the “Summer of Strong”

I find is amusing that I do these workouts which I consider tough with her, and she is grinning ear to ear, on her summer of fun while I am in my summer of Marathon Redemption!  She is in far better shape than I, but I do so enjoy having a buddy that can grin while I struggle.

Today was actually the hardest work out as it involved 7 miles of running on a week day, with some odd speed intervals.  I didn’t do them very well, and actually messed up the pacing.  After feeling defeated and wanting to quit, I remembered that I had told my coach that I was concerned about this work out, and that he had said, “What?  You got that”  So I found some strength and got the workout done.  Not super perfectly, but I think I learned a few things in the doing of it, and I got all the miles in for warm and cool.

I have 12.5 more miles to run over the weekend, plus a pile of spinning in the gym… I noticed this afternoon that my legs do feel a tiny bit beat up.

As you can see from my weeks of milage…since January, I really have not had very high miles…This week I’ll have about 27 which is right up there, so no wonder my legs are feeling fatigued. Turns out you can’t see my Miles…Hmmm.  The highest I actually got just running was 31 miles.  (OH MY, no wonder my Marathon was a bust.) My coach had tried to use swim/cycle to make up fro it, but even he admitted it didn’t work that well.

Best thing about this week so far has been great communication from the coach.  Somehow, with the Marathon attempt out of the way…I think we both have refocused and he seems much more relaxed about getting me to the NEW Marathon point (now about 26 weeks away), and I’m more focused about going there, though, as he pointed out, “Well that will come and go…”  He clarified some exercises for me yesterday and we had some time to just talk about the workouts.  He surprised me by saying, “You really are doing really well, I hope you know that”  I was pleased to hear those words, and had the typical response of shrugging and saying “I guess so” – When I’m in the middle of something, it’s hard to see anything but what I’m sitting in.  Yeah, I guess I have improved.

So I’m up to 27 miles a week or so this week…the Coach casually says, Oh yeah, we’re keeping you in condition for that race in Utah (my fun run)…then ….we’ll start to build base.

Yeah.  I gave him the hairy eyeball. What the heck is base building going to look like?

At which he laughed.  Ah well, the guy has my number. As Coaches go, he isn’t perfect,  he’s made a few big mistakes with me, but as a person, he is really pretty OK, he admits his mistakes, I admit mine, we learn from each other, and I am getting stronger.

So my main concern for the rest of this week is adequate rest of the legs and not hurting them….

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• Posted in: Cross training ♦ running ♦ Speed work ♦ Strength Training ♦ Training plans