Week 6: Marathon Training

Happy Memorial day! I hope you are all having a great day and remembering our fallen soldiers. I have had a very productive morning, but let’s get straight into this past week and how training went! If you’re new to my blog, I am training for the Rock n Roll Series Las Vegas Marathon (in November). I am fortunate to be working with an amazing coach who is guiding me through these workouts and preparing me for race day. His name is Andrew Simmons with Lifelong Endurance. If you have any questions about how having a coach is going, feel free to ask!

[ week 6 / 24 weeks until 26.2 ]

Sunday – Long run! 8 miles/1:17:58/9:44min pace. Despite it being really HOT this day, I felt good. I had to slow myself down at first (for the first 4ish miles) because my legs just felt great and bouncy! Then the heat started to get to me. Around mile 6, I thought to myself how on earth am I going to finish? I was drenched in sweat. Water was my lifesaver. 

Thank you, water!!! So, I did it – and nothing hurt! Just had heavy legs for the last few miles but overall the run felt pretty good. I drew a smiley face in my notes on this run, so it must’ve been pretty good. 🙂

Monday – 3 miles/27:46/9:15min/mile. Today I tried waking up early for a run – that was a no go… (darn snooze button!) but I ended up squeezing in a lunch run. I really was trying to keep my pace at 10min/mile but it ended being 9:15. I still felt like I was keeping an easy, aerobic pace. It was HOT (again!) – lot’s of sweat, sun, and heat. The run started off overcast, but of course just as I begin running the sun beats down (yay, Texas!). The run still felt good. Since it was so short, I didn’t get TOO hot. And I took a little handheld water with me.

I wouldn’t usually bring water on such a short run, but since it’s SO hot in Texas this time of year (it will be 100+ degrees F) I have been bringing at least a handheld on almost every run.

I also did my Monday Gold’s Fit class (Crossfit) and I forgot to take a pic of the board like I usually do so I wrote down as much as I could remember that we did.

Warm-up – arms & chest

Skill – dips and chest press (lots of chest today)

Training – push ups, wall balls, arm-ups (?), back press

(I try to take a pic of what we did because some moves have strange names and I can’t remember what they are 🙂 )

Tuesday – Another nice 3 miles run today – 3miles/28:55. Hot again (85 degrees F) didn’t seem too bad, though, since it was a short one… nonetheless, I was absolutely drenched in sweat afterwards! Sweat is good!

Wednesday – 4:30AM alarm! I tried a spin class at Gold’s Fit this morning. I usually cycle at Flywheel Sports which I LOVE, but this is closer to me, so I tried it out. The class was fine – got a good workout… but it was very different. At Flywheel you use cycling shoes (even if you don’t have any, they rent shoes out to you) and at this place, you strap your shoes in. The bikes are nice – but that part was different for me. I didn’t even know you could tighten the shoe straps so my feet were on the verge of flinging out for the first 10 minutes. I think I’ll like it okay once I get used to the bike… but as of now, I get a much better workout and feel more challenged at Flywheel Sports, so I will continue there at least until my membership contract is up. 🙂

I went ahead and did my run once I got home from spin. 3 miles again. 3miles/28min/9:20min/mile. I was completely SOAKED in sweat after this and cycling. It was great. The run felt really nice since I was already warmed up. All around I felt great during and after this run and felt like I got an awesome workout in – all before 7am! That’s the best feeling.

Thursday – Ran 4.56miles/40 min/8:47 average pace (min/mi). 10 minutes easy, 20 minutes hard (5K effort), 10 min easy.

The run today was a tough one. It was 80 degrees (felt like 90) and 65% humidity. To specify – I don’t quite know what my “5K effort” is – as I am fairly new to the whole racing/training thing. But, I tried to keep a pace that I thought I could hold for the entire 20 minutes, which ended up being about 8:00 min/mile. It was hot again, and I noted that my hamstring was a little tight on this run. Nothing too major.

Friday – 4 miles/37:36/9:24 pace. Stayed aerobic (no heavy breathing) throughout this run (as usual for most runs so far unless hills or sprints are involved). It was rainy and “cool” out (72 degrees) which was nice. Hamstring felt a bit tight again but other than that – mostly due to the nice weather – it was a good run. I did note, though, that I encountered some “questionable” ducks (I’m a city girl, y’all).

Saturday – Rest and recovery day! I had donuts for breakfast and had a great day overall. I wanted to ask if any of you have a really strict diet – or do you eat donuts every once in a while, too? I don’t think the occasional junk food has really effected me… I usually try to eat as many healthy and wholesome foods as I can. I have an extremely fast metabolism (even when I don’t run, eve more so when running) so I try to jam pack everything I eat with healthy foods but also eat donuts once a week and may or may not be eating Cheetos Puffs as I write this blog. Just was wondering your thoughts on that.

Total miles for the week – 25.56

Total miles for the month of May! – 122.40

I hope you all had a great week!

Thanks for reading!