I hit every workout goal this week! That feels really good. 🙂 Of course, my usual pattern is to hit every workout goal one week and then fall completely off the wagon the next week. Let’s hope that doesn’t happen this time!
Workouts
Monday Lots of hilly walking for cross-training – Technically my training plan calls for rest Monday and cross training Friday, but I always feel like moving on Mondays so I may shuffle that order a bit.
Tuesday 3 miles in the morning, back on my home turf.
Wednesday 7 miles on the schedule, which I’m never going to get done before work at my current pace. I ran 3.5 in the morning and 3.5 again in the evening to get my miles in for the day. Honestly, this is what this midweek long-ish run is going to look like for the rest of training and I’m okay with it so long as I can make myself get out there again in the evening!
Thursday 4 miles in the morning! It felt like such a big accomplishment to wake up three days in a row mid-week for my runs. Getting to bed early is helping!
Friday Family strength training in the living room 🙂
Saturday A lovely walk, plus a nice NSV of ignoring the pastries and going for the fruit while I was judging a poster competition on the med school campus.
Sunday I had 15 miles on the schedule – a new long run record. I went out to Lincoln (about 45 minutes away) to run a half marathon (the Halfsy – race report coming up). Because I hadn’t done packet pick up on Saturday, I had to get to the race an hour before the start time to pick up my stuff. After dropping the t-shirt and goodies back in the car, I headed out for 1.75 miles as a warm up while I waited for the race to start. I always go a little over 13.1 miles when I run half marathons, so I figured 1.75 would get me where I needed to be to total 15 for the day. My toes had a sore spot during the run, but otherwise I felt fine with 15 total miles for the morning instead of the 13.1 I usually top out at. I felt pretty good in that last mile of the half marathon about hitting a new distance PR for the day!
The only down side to 15 miles? The overwhelming urge to nap afterwards! This was particularly problematic as I had a bit of a drive home. I was also amazingly not hungry at all for the rest of the day. Once I got home, I did some yoga to stretch out and another round of body weight strength training exercises to hit two strength sessions for the week.
In total, I ran 29 miles this week and hit a new distance PR of 15 miles and felt pretty good about the whole week!
Something in my brain clicked into “marathon training” mode this week and I didn’t find it nearly as hard to get motivated to work out as I normally do. Definitely a win!
My good deed this week was donating a Thanksgiving dinner at my grocery store. I’m trying to be more conscious of my gratitude this month (especially amidst all of the negativity of the election) and am truly grateful that my family doesn’t have to worry about a safe home or food to eat. We’re talking a lot to Oliver about how fortunate we are and how important it is to give back.
Speaking of O, we’ve got our first family homework assignment from kindergarten (and yes, we as parents were explicitly instructed to help with this). We’re making a family tree and I love that Oliver is including our friend-family (Darrell and my best friends are always referred to as Uncle Sam and Aunt Mildred in our house, so they’re family to O) as the roots of his family tree. Family is definitely what you make it. 🙂
This week, I have 4 / 8 / 4 miles for weekday runs and then 16 miles for my long run this weekend. Cross your fingers for me – I have to fly to DC tomorrow for a meeting in Bethesda, Maryland and am crossing my fingers that things stay peaceful around the election this week. I’ll only be gone Tuesday-Thursday and the place I’m staying has a fitness center, so I should be able to get my miles in without a problem. It’s nice that this will be a quick trip!
My favorite thing about my week is the fact that my friend Mildred ran her first half marathon Saturday and had a great race. The best part, though, was the text Sunday where she said she was already thinking about her next race and wondering if that was normal. 🙂 That finishing high can definitely be addictive!
How long after your first race did you register for a second one?
A Little More Each Day 
Congrats on your 15 miles – that is no joke!! When is your marathon? I am trying to talk my guy into some yoga as part of his training. I guess I am going to have to get on the floor with him 🙂
I do a lot of yoga in the hallway during Oliver’s bath time and not nearly enough time in a dedicated yoga class. It helps though!
15 miles is a distance I haven’t event attempted in about 3 years. Kudos to you
This weekend I’m doing 16 and it’ll be all at once (as opposed to slightly broken up like this was) which feels like a huge thing to attempt! It’s amazing for me to even see those numbers in association with my own running. Yikes!
Woohoo! Setting new mileage PRs is an awesome feeling! Glad it was a good long run for you and you were able to work in a race to get it done.
Now all of my remaining long runs are just going to miles on my own. I hope I can stick with it without the structure of a race!
Congrats on hitting your goals for the week and your highest distance! Sounds like training is going well!
So far, I’ve been doing things I’ve done for years with half marathon training. I have a feeling it’s about to get a lot more challenging as I enter “serious” marathon training. Fingers crossed that things keep going well!
Congratulations on your distance record! I think including a half marathon definitely makes marathon training more fun and motivational. It took me a year to register for my second half marathon. Not that I didn’t love it, but at the time I thought they all needed to be special racecation events. I’ve since gotten over that! LOL. Thanks for linking, Jessica!
I’m definitely ready to join a race at the drop of a hat now. I just had to convince myself that I could just run on Thanksgiving morning rather than finding a race to join when I visit my sister for the holiday. 🙂
You are really racking up the medals for all your training runs, and why not I say! Great job. I think your very luck to travel so much and get to run in all these great places! Great job on getting in miles before your race, that takes dedication!
My first race (half) was first of February and the second was end of August. Peer pressure made me do it but actually it wasn’t until I had completed 4-5 before I actually wanted to do more.
It is amazing how easily it becomes a habit to run races once you get over the nerves of it all. 🙂