Week 5 of Marathon training is in the books. The weather decided to get warm this week. And cold too. And warm again. And cold again. Because Mother Nature appears to be suffering from Bipolar Disorder.
Monday was a normal day with form drills, 3 miles, and 7 strides. It was chilly, but at least I could wear shorts while running in the morning.
Tuesday was up the hill and back down before dawn. I turned the loop around (went all. the. way. up. Gilbert. Ave.), which is sometimes a little faster. It was snowing a little, but nothing was sticking. There was a nice color to the sky coming back down into the Eden Park roundabout/reservoir area, a nice shade of lavender/pink. 6 miles.
Wednesday was like Monday but with the route reversed. 3 miles and 7 strides. Wednesday was 1 second less than Monday and 0.01 mile less than Monday. Guess the route is ever so slightly faster if I cross the Roebling Suspension Bridge before the Purple People Bridge and not the other way around.
Thursday was a nearly perfect morning for running – 45, breezy, no precipitation. I felt fast but calm (not grueling), despite gorging myself (a little) on some pizza the night before. I started later than normal (by about a half hour). 6 miles.
Friday was cold, so I ran at lunch. I ran in a lesser-ran part of the riverfront that happens to be miles 22.something to 25.something, and I ran it out and back. I had to make a pit-stop sometime in mile 9, which slowed miles 9 and 10, but it was pretty fast overall, 12.08 miles, 8:32 min/mi pace.
Friday was cold, so I ran at lunch. I ran in a lesser-ran part of the riverfront that happens to be miles 22.something to 25.something, and I ran it out and back. I had to make a pit-stop sometime in mile 9, which slowed miles 9 and 10, but it was pretty fast overall, 12.08 miles, 8:32 min/mi pace.
Friday was cold, so I ran at lunch. I ran in a lesser-ran part of the riverfront that happens to be miles 22.something to 25.something, and I ran it out and back. I had to make a pit-stop sometime in mile 9, which slowed miles 9 and 10, but it was pretty fast overall, 12.08 miles, 8:32 min/mi pace.
Friday was…
The week was 32.5 miles with 4 hours 36 minutes spent running. This week, as was the last two, was right around 8:30 min/mi overall (8:31 this week, 8:28 last week, 8:33 two weeks ago). I’ll take those paces!
Looking forward to next week, I have a pull-back week before getting to the week with the 14 miler. The farthest I have ever run was 14.02 miles on 4/3/2015. I did a subsequent run on 4/17/2015 that was supposed to be 14 miles, but I stopped just before that and hobbled back to the office. I found out later I fractured my sacrum. Back then, after stupidly taking 3 Advil and running a half marathon (I PRed so it was worth it… or something like that), I was off of running for 3 months, then refractured it and was off another 2. I’ve been under care to a doctor, so I’m hoping that changes I’ve made (following doctor’s orders) will mean that the next few months will be injury-free. However, next week and going into the week after is going to feel like this (and you’ll have to click ‘play’ because cover image =/= the point)…
(PS: The coaster is Valravn at Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio. If you like coasters and haven’t been there, you should go. This one, Gatekeeper, Millennium Force, Top Thrill Dragster, Maverick, and even the older Raptor are awesome coasters. Even better, they did work on Mean Streak and it’s probably a lot better now than it was. I do not, however, recommend their half marathon – everywhere in Ohio in June, July, or August is a sticky version of Hell – if you want to do a theme park half marathon that isn’t Di$ney, hopefully Kings Island will bring back theirs this October).
In completely other news, I decided that this blog was no longer a lower-priority blog for me and I bought a domain name for it. This is now www.runningonbeer.blog (it used to be run.runningonbeer.net.
Cheers!