Training Recap: More Ups and Downs

Last week started off great.  After Sunday’s awesome 8 miler, I started off the week with a planned rest day and mild panic attack on Monday.  It’s hard to explain but sometimes really good runs make me more nervous than really bad runs.  I’m still really not sure what to expect during my first race of the year , but it’s not going to do me any good to be worrying 3 weeks out.

Tuesday, I headed out for a lunch run. My legs were still a little stiff from Sunday’s run so I took it slow and enjoyed the sights. Instead of taking my normal route up Constitution, I ran down to Independence and around the far side of the Mall to the Lincoln. I had to stop and stretch my calves a few times but everything finally loosened up at mile 2.5. Of course, I was only running around 4 miles but the last 1.5ish miles were great.

Love the Tidal Basin.

I ended up missing my Tuesday yoga class because the BF was leaving for a business trip on Wednesday morning and he wanted to make me dinner. Tilapia stuffed with crab meat = heaven = a perfect reason to miss a yoga class!

Wednesday morning, I headed to the pool and swam my second ever full mile – and I did it 2 and a half minutes faster than the first one!  I was using a pull buoy for around half of it so I’m guessing being more buoyant made it a little easier for me. I’m still really proud that I had time to get in a longer swim in the morning.  After that one bad morning, when the pool was overrun by that rogue Masters group, I swore off morning swims but I’m glad I gave it another try.

I woke up Thursday starting to feel sick. Again. I just had the flu two weeks ago and I managed to catch a cold this week. I still felt kind of ok around lunch time so I met up with Sarah for my lunch tempo – the goal was 5 miles with 3 at a 10:17 pace. We ended up blasting that goal to pieces while having a nice chatty run.  I headed to meet her at the Mall and counted the .75 mile trip from my office as my warm up. I turned autolap off on my Garmin and just lapped it every mile.  We must have been pretty excited when we met up because we did our first tempo mile at 9:29.  Whoops.  We slowed it down and ran the second mile at just over 10:00. We finished up the last tempo miles at 9:58.  I cooled down and headed back to the office at a 10:11 pace (whoops, even my cool down was faster than my goal tempo pace) – overall run pace: 9:51.  I felt so good after the run, I was really hoping I might have dodged the bullet on the cold but no luck. I got sicker as the day went on.

BAM!