My apologies. This was supposed to go up first thing Friday, but I guess it had some technical difficulties!
Happy Friday! Is anyone else as excited as me that it is here? Probably not after the week I’ve had, but hey I made it to the other side so that has to count for something!
Training this week has not been what I would have hoped. In all honesty, this training season has been much more difficult than in the past. I’m not sure what exactly is making it so difficult. I mean I could list off a million things in my training that have made it hard: heat, humidity, early mornings, faster paces, a bit of over training the off season, long work days, etc. In the end however I can only work with what I’ve got so that is what I’ve been trying to focus on.
Let’s get caught up a bit shall we.
I forgot to share this exciting news with you all last weekend! On Thursday afternoon my husband showed up at work with quite a surprise!
The car I’ve had for the past 8 years has been having a lot of problems lately. We’ve put quite a bit of money into it, but at some point you realize it just wasn’t worth it. Wes and I have been talking about trading my car in for a while, but have been dragging our feet because we didn’t have a car payment and weren’t too crazy about taking one on.
Little did I know, he already had something in the works. We left my car at my in-laws last weekend to have some work done. Instead of having it done, he began working to get it traded in and to find something new. Within 4 days he found a car, traded mine it, and had it driven up to Danville.
My beautiful new Chevy Cruze! His brother has had one and enjoyed it and he knew I wanted red (don’t ask me why, I’ve always wanted a red car) so he made it happen! I’m in love!
I thought I’d start out with the positive, because I’ve been trying really hard to focus on that. If you follow me on Instagram, you already know I had a less than stellar tempo run on Tuesday morning. I really don’t know why. Mentally I wasn’t there, physically I felt OK but not 100%, and Wes (who was running it with me) suggested I pull the plug at mile 5 as I began to get off pace. I did finish it off with 10-12 strides and some hill sprints.
I was pretty down and hard on myself that day, but decided just to try to focus on the next. I did 7 easy on Wednesday and then Thursday instead of my normal hard work out, I opted for some cruise intervals instead.
The thing about a “cookie cutter” marathon training plan is that life happens. You can’t be so stuck in the plan that you don’t make adjustments as you need. This has taken me quite a while, an injury and a few lectures from my husband, to really understand.
I knew I had a tough workout for the weekend so I didn’t want to exhaust myself even more and after the tempo run I knew that mentally it was the best thing for me. It’s still a great workout just not quite as taxing as the original workout would have been trying to hold 6:30 paces for 3+ miles.
The workout on Thursday went pretty well. Instead of going all out, I did marathon pace, half marathon pace and 10k pace for each of the intervals. I shortened them a little bit as well from the original workout. I’ll go into more detail on Sunday.
I haven’t quite decided if I will be doing this workout next week (possibly) or just skipping it. I am really trying hard to take this training a day at a time and not plan every single day 3 weeks in advance like I have been known to do.
Finally, I’ll leave you with this great quote I found on Wednesday.
Regardless of if I hit my goals or not come October, I want to remember the reason I run through it all. I don’t ever want any training season or pace to take away the enjoyment that running provides for me. I have a long time to continue to improve and work on my goals. I am looking forward to seeing what my body can do this season and then I’ll work from there! Don’t get me wrong, my goals are still there and going strong, but I have to stop putting too much pressure and remember that in the end I do this because I truly love it.
Do you ever have to have a “talk” with yourself?
Do you adapt workouts during your training?
I rented a Chevy Cruze last year on vacation. I really liked that car. If I didn’t need an SUV to carry my dogs around, I would seriously consider the Cruze.
Last year I did not adjust my training plan at all from the Hanson’s plan. However, this year, I have already given myself some grace to take Monday’s as a cross training day rather than a recovery run (per the books schedule). I think cross training has a lot of benefits, but I sometimes fear I am messing with their cumulative fatigue theory. We’ll see if the occasional Monday cross training helps or hurts my performance. I think it will help me mentally though.
~ Run with joy!
Cute car! I really like the red. My niece just got a new Chevy Cruze last weekend, but hers is white. She leaves for college in a few weeks and needed something more reliable.