First Week of Speed Recap

This week kicked off week 4 of my 12 week Shamrock training. Determined to get my redemption from Philly, I wanted a schedule that would really push me more than I've pushed myself in the past. The first 3 weeks were smooth sailing with getting used to quicker paces and some longer mid week runs, but I can tell I'm working much harder than I have in the past. I usually max out at 6, maybe 7, miles on any given day during the week but this schedule has me gradually increasing that until I eventually hit 10 miles on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Knowing I have 4 weeks of 10 mile runs before work 2 days a week has me a little frazzled, but I'm going to make it work. I know it's just a mental hump I need to get over.

So, week 4 started my first of many weeks of speed work. Tuesday was a ladder workout and today was a tempo run. For those of you who aren't familiar with ladders, you pick up the pace for 1 minute, recover 1 minute. Then pick it up for 2 minutes, recover a minute. Take that to 3 minutes with another 1 minute recovery and then go backwards. Take a short break and then repeat X amount of times. My ladder pace is 7:00 mi/min but since I do these on the treadmill, I knocked them out at 6:58 and felt great. The one thing I love about these workouts is that time flies. The 8 miles were over before I knew it!

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling a little beat up. I haven't had a day off in a while and my body was just overall tired. I was planning to use my bike trainer but opted for an easy half hour on the ellipitcal and some lifting. I was dying on the elliptical but once I got to the weights, I felt much better. I love lifting and wish I had more time to do it. It's just such a hard balance when you're trying to give your legs a break in between hard workouts. I at least manage to get a lot of upper body work in during the week, so it's something.

I woke up feeling much better today and ready to tackle my first tempo run. Now, it was only 2 miles at tempo pace (7:40) but I was a little nervous. I was anxious to see what the pace felt like considering the miles at this pace are going to keep increasing over the next several weeks. I warmed up around 8:34 for the first 2 miles then upped my speed. Since my treadmill pace said 7:41 I decided to bump it up a notch. Two miles at 7:35...no sweat! Not a huge accomplishment but it felt good. My breathing was normal and I felt very comfortable. If nothing else, it made next week a little less scary! Post run, feeling fabulous!

Tomorrow is a nice easy recovery run then Saturday I'm shooting for 19 miles. We're getting more snow and the weather channel is referring to Saturday as the "arctic invasion." So another frigid run and a challenge to find a spot clear enough to do it. As much as I love winter and snow, it really makes marathon training difficult.