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Sunday, April 7, 2013

HALF MARATHON TRAINING UPDATE: Week 12 and 6

I'll be honest with you, I struggled a little bit to get through some of the training runs this week.  I remember feeling the same way towards the end of the training cycle for Vegas and I have to push through it.  Part of the problem has to do with my Crohn's which has been a little cranky lately and part of it has to do with the fact that I've been logging a ton of miles.  Go figure since I'm training to run a half marathon!  My run with Team Challenge on Saturday was probably the hardest.  We left as a group but the fast runners took off and I was running alone for the first mile.  At that point Coach B came and ran with me which I actually enjoyed.  Last season I had an awkward conversation with Coach B that I didn't want to run with her because I needed to focus on running instead of trying to maintain a conversation.  As I've gotten more comfortable with running I've also come to cherish the times that I run with others.  Even if it is only for short periods of time I finally feel like I can keep up, both with the conversation and with running.  However, as I was running on Saturday I realized exactly how completely exhausted my legs and arms felt.  Coach B told me that I needed to start to cut back (race day is now less than 2 weeks away) and I literally chose that moment to cut back and started to walk. I'm not sure that's exactly what she meant but I didn't care!  We chatted a bit more and then she went to run with a teammate and I continued on.  I covered the planned distance for training (which wasn't my original plan) by running and walking.  I thought it had been mostly walking until I looked at the data on my Garmin.  I ran ~4 miles and walked 1 mile.  Not terrible considering I'd done 8 really fast (for me) miles the day before.

Oshkosh Half Marathon Training Schedule
Monday:  Run, 3 miles
Tuesday:  Cross train
Wednesday:  Run, 6 miles, speed work (w/u, 3 x 1600 @ 9:41, c/d)
Thursday:  Strength train
Friday:  Run, 2 miles, easy
Saturday:  Run, 11 miles
Sunday:  Rest

And here's how the week actually went:
Monday:  Run, 3 miles @ 9:54
Tuesday:  Bike Trainer, 30 minutes, 7.71 miles
Wednesday:  Run, 5 miles (1 mi @ 10:33, 1 mi @ 8:45, 0.5 mi @ 10:22, 1 mi @ 8:45, 0.5 mi @ 10:07, 1 mi @ 10:07)
Thursday:  Fat bike ride, 57:22, 11.66 miles
Friday:  Run, 8 miles @ 10:11/mi
Saturday:  Run, 5.12 miles @ 11:28/mi
Sunday:  Rest

Do you start to feel run down towards the end of a training cycle?  How do you power through or do you take more rest days?

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