Monday: an actual rest day. I had plans to go to yoga, but they fell apart when a storm hit, and the messy roads made for a stressful, low visibility ride home from work. Instead, I took full advantage of the power of a night on the couch.
Tuesday morning was my first early wake up in a week, and my body felt heavy, particularly the giant bags under my eyes.
It was a windy morning, which obviously means I started with too many layers.
Kasey was waiting for me at the end of my block, and we chatted as the sun slowly rose in the sky. I like that this is the new normal, her humoring my chatting with one headphone off her ear in the morning. As we approached her house she commented about how we haven’t had a good since rise in weeks, since before daylight savings really - and what was the point of an early morning run if you don’t at least get a good sunrise?!
She finished her run shortly after that, and the morning view got a little better, as though it had heard her complaining. I headed towards my parents house to snag some water and drop a jacket, before turning to complete my round trip journey. Back to the apartment, picking up the pace as I went. I wound up with an unintentionally progressive run, for the most part, starting at 10:10 and getting down to 8:47 for the last mile. Five total to start the weeks mileage.
When I got back to the apartment it was so warm inside, even with the thermostat set as low as we can set it, they I stood out front to cool off for a minute, as the cats sat in the window wondering why I wasn’t getting inside immediately to feed them.
That night I headed to yoga with Sophie and Emily to make up for skipping our usual Monday class. And then Emily and I went again on Wednesday, that time to a restorative Yin class. Every time we do a yin class I feel like I blink and it’s time to go home, it is just that relaxing.
I passed out earlier than usual on Wednesday night, and was up on time Thursday for my run with Kasey, even if I did have the usual morning feeling of hope that she would cancel on me (she never does). We discussed how windy it was, but as usual Kasey motivated me to get out of the door. She always does.
We were fighting the wind anytime we headed west, but our paces were quicker than usual. My plan was run the usual route with Kasey, and then transition into a speed workout when her run was done. Looking at the paces the night before I felt like the 200m repeats were a little more than aggressive, but programmed them into my garmin nonetheless.
My schedule called for a warmup, 4x200m @ 6:48/200m recovery, 2 miles at 8:56, then another set of 4x200.
I hit the lap button, and went right into the 200 m repeats, which were basically a sprint pace for me. But they only lasted about a minute, so they were doable. I got though the first three, then quickly dipped into my parents house to drop off my light up vest, as the sun was up by that point. Dad poured me a sip of water, and I was on my way again. One more repeat in the first set, then a transition into the two mile set.
I got one mile into that set, and my stomach started cramping, insisting that another pass by of my parents house was necessary for a quick potty break. I got back to their house, headed for the bathroom, and got running again as quickly as I could. The second mile went MUCH smoother than the first, and rang in a little faster. At that point I was headed back to the apartment, and just had to get through one more set of 200m repeats.
As I picked the speed up each time, I counted the number of houses I ran by. I managed to hit my numbers for all of the repeats in the second set, and felt the sweet feeling of relief when the tough numbers were done, knowing that I could ease the pace as I just had to make it though a cooldown back to the apartment. Seven miles, at an average pace of 8:50, and boy did I feel good about it.
I rounded out the work week with a 5 mile run on Friday morning. Thursday’s wind had passed, and I got to take it easy this time around. Kasey had an early shift at work, so she met me at the usual time, and we headed out to get our miles done.
I had intentions of swimming after work, but wound up having to stay late to get a project out, so my plan fell apart.
On Saturday morning I headed to prospect park with Mike and Carson (one of the girls I work with) for the New York Road Runners jingle all the way 5k. It was my turn to drive, and I managed to miss an exit on the highway, extending our drive a little longer than anticipated. So, when we pulled up on prospect park Mike hopped out of the car to go grab all of our bibs while Carson and I looked for, and eventually found, parking. We then had to jog to the start area, where we tracked down Mike, and managed to check our bags before heading to the start line - and we got there just in time for the start, bells pinned on and all.
I had forgotten just how hilly prospect park was, and an easy summary of this race is “it was three miles of me swearing the hill was almost over (it was not).”
When we first crossed the start line it was crowded, but as we worked our way into the first mile the road opened up, and it no longer felt like we were at risk of being elbow checked. We joked around and sang made up songs, and were through the first mile before I knew it.
The second mile got challenging fast, as we began an upward climb that felt never ending. Carson told me that she was going to need to take a break, and I told her she wasn’t doing that- peak run bully performance. But Mike agreed with me, and we rallied to all keep going, counting out “One! Two! Three!” to check that we were all together, even if sometimes Carson replaced her shout of “three” with assorted other noises.
The downhill that I swore was coming lasted about two seconds before we were climbing uphill again, but the best part about a 5k is that it is only three miles long, so soon enough the finish line was upon us, and we picked up the pace for the last stretch, coming in at just under 30 minutes. We filtered through the finish line, collecting our apples and bagels, which were shaped like candy canes and wreaths.
I promptly orchestrated a photo shoot with our festive bagels, each of us in turn posing as the letter “Y,” with the bagels serving as our J and O- spreading JOY!
After the long ride home from Brooklyn, I headed out for three more miles with Sophie. Both of us felt like we just couldn’t get moving, and we’re glad when my watch ticked over to the three mile mark.
I had originally intended to get my long run done after the race on Saturday, but I felt like crap and knew that it wasn’t going to happen. In this case, feeling like crap was a headache that I just couldn’t shake, that was tied to feeling nauseous.
Sunday morning thunderstorms were on the forecast, and I was still feeling fatigued. Unlike past training cycles, this one has me doing a long run every weekend, just getting a little longer each week, and honestly, I was at a point of mental fatigue this weekend, and just couldn’t talk myself into an 18 mile treadmill run.
So, I looked at my training schedule. The following weekend I was planning to do a long run with Mike on Saturday, by adding a few miles to the race we had scheduled - the Ted Corbitt 15k. Realistically, I should be doing back to back long runs to prepare for Goofy, so I resigned myself to get in the long run after the 5k I was racing Sunday, since I only had three miles scheduled that day.
And just like that, I pushed my 18 mile run back a weekend, and headed to planet fitness for a lower mileage day, thanks to Emily agreeing to go with me- my motivation was seriously lacking.
We hung out on the treadmill for a little more than an hour, and I got in 7 miles, before having to move on to the rest of my plans for the day, which were distinctly non-running related.
I beat myself up a little bit for changing the plan, but sometimes you have to roll with the punches, and my mental fatigue was real this week. But I did what I could, and sometimes that’s the best I have.