RACE WEEK!

I will be running the BCS Marathon Half THIS Sunday! Am I nervous? Nope! I’ve put in the work, have an amazing coach (thank you Lifelong Endurance!) and am going to do my best! I know that I will try my very best on race day and if things don’t go my way, well, I’ll have a perfect excuse to sign up for more races!

SO many factors go into running. Fitness, nutrition, weather, hydration, electrolytes, and well – being HUMAN. Running is supposed to be FUN and, since I’m not trying to become an Olympic athlete or anything, I plan to keep it that way. So! Just a reminder to have TOUGH GOALS but KEEP IT FUN! Do it for YOURSELF and no one else. Let’s dig in!

Monday

Plan: 6 miles easy

Ran: 6.01 miles/57:27/9:34 min/mile

I started off slow, stiff, and sluggish but got in the groove (finally!) and felt good for about the last 4 miles. It was a nice, cool evening. We haven’t really had “cold” weather yet here in Texas so a “cool” evening is really nice and noteworthy. I’ll take what I can get and am just glad it’s not in the 100’s any more!

Yep, still running in shorts & tank tops here in the south!

Tuesday

Plan: 2 miles easy, 2 x 8:00 @ 8:10 + 2:00 active recovery, 2 miles easy

Ran: 0 miles

My knee felt weird today. I moved it wrong last week and irritated it again at kickboxing… I was wobbling around a bit so Coach and I and made an executive decision that it would be counter-productive to run on it, so I opted for an easy 20 minute swim.

It felt nice to swim! Something different!

Wednesday

Plan: 5 miles easy

Ran: 5.01 miles/46:47/9:21 min/mile

My knee felt better today! Rest is best! I swam to warm up, then ran my easy 5 miles as planned. The knee felt fine and didn’t hurt a bit which made me feel incredibly relieved. There’s no better feeling than dodging an injury! One day off is better than one month!

Seen on my run. Hard to miss!

Thursday

Plan: 4 miles easy + cross-training

Ran: 4.03 miles/38:27/9:33 min/mile + spin class

My run felt GREAT today! I think that one impromptu rest day really did me some good. I ran in the early morning and it was actually COLD! (50’s… that’s freezing for this Texan) So the run felt great in the cool, crisp air. I did a spin class for my cross-training and really had fun with the high-energy Flywheel class.

It was a great month. Bye, November!

Friday

Plan: 2 miles easy, 5 miles @ 8:40-8:45, 1 mile @ marathon pace

Ran: 8.02 miles. 1:10:28/8:47 min/mile

This was a tough one! It was a nice, chilly morning so that helped, and I made it! I took a while to get in the groove of being in the 8:00’s and last mile in the 7:00’s was tough, but I did it!

Saturday

Plan: 10 miles – 2 miles easy, 8 miles @ 8:50

Ran: This was a tough but solid run. It was cool out – not cold or chilly. I would’ve loved slightly cooler temps… this run just felt hard. My Saturday long run course is fairly hilly and those hills just killed me today! Fortunately I had a run buddy who kept me in check with my pace and pushed me to keep going.

Solid long-ish run.

Sunday

Rest day!

So, it was solid week of running and I feel confident going into RACE WEEK! I’m excited to head to College Station on Saturday and run in a new city!

Ready to take on race week!

How do you handle impromptu rest days during training? Do you do it often?

Do you have any end-of-year races coming up?