Feelin' Good

Woke up to a sheet of ice covering everything outside this morning. It's so pretty to look at but makes such a mess and causes broken trees and power outages. When I got to the kitchen this morning I noticed water running down the wall in several spots from the skylights and the back windows. I threw open the shades and water splashed everywhere. It wasn't dripping but actually running out of any place it could. A little freaked out, I did what every Daddy girl does and I called my Dad. Turns out the windows weren't leaking but there was water trapped on the roof from all the snow we've had and it got in between the walls. Dad came up with some tool to clean snow off the roof and thankfully that stopped it. Now the rain and melting snow has some place to go other than through my walls onto my nice hardwood floors. Don't know what I'd do without that man...

In other news, I finished off January with 175 miles. I'm really happy with that considering it was the start of training and I'm only running 5 days a week to ensure I make time for cross training and lifting. I...feel...so...good and I attribute this to the cross training. Not only does it help with muscular imbalances, I really think it helps my running.  Overall, it was a strong month for me and I ended up only taking 2 complete rest days. One of which wasn't needed but I had too much fun the night before, slept in and then was too tired after work to do anything. I'm annoyed about that one. But now it's 8 weeks till race day and week 1 of my 4 hardest weeks of Shamrock training. I've been preparing myself more mentally than anything for these 4 weeks because it's harder than I've ever pushed myself before. Sort of makes me wonder how I ever qualified for Boston in the first place because I definitely don't feel like I worked nearly as hard as I am now. I think if I can get through this full week and see that it's manageable, then the next 3 will be less intimidating. I'm sure by the end of the third week I'll be ready to think about tapering.

I've also realized that I actually enjoy running more when I run faster. I know I always had these paces in me; I just never pushed myself to run them consistently. But even with that being said, I can tell the paces are getting easier and I continue to get more comfortable with them. I'm not running anything over an 8:30 except for my long runs and even then I'm keeping a 9 minute mile with increasing speed towards the end of the run. As the weeks progress if I need more recovery, I'll definitely back off the pace a bit in between the hard workouts. But for now, I love how the runs feel so I'm sticking with it. I can not wait until Shamrock!!

Here's my schedule for the week:
Mon - 5 mi, a little lifting
Tues - 10 mi, 2 ladders at 6:58
Wed - bike trainer
Thurs - 10 mi, 4 miles at tempo (7:40)
Fri - 5 mi, lift
Sat - 17 mi
Sun - cross train, lift