Week in Review

77 miles
12 mile MLR
6 x mile on track
20 Miles Long Run

This week I nailed all of my workouts.  Leading up to my finals, I worried that the heavy workload from accounting and managerial effectiveness would take a toll on my fitness and affect my ability to successfully complete workouts.  In fact, running still seems to be an outlet for stress relief, rather than building more stress.  If it becomes a stressor, then that means I need to take a day off.   This week I had Billy's company for a mile repeat workout on Duke's track and then Amanda and George joined me for a long run on the ATT.

Mile Repeats:
Splits (Rest)
556 (56)
547 (1:26)
542 (1:59)
533 (2:25)
528 (2:59)5:24 
The goal here was to get faster each mile and to increase the rest after each interval. I was told to stop whenever I could no longer hit the split at 8 seconds faster than the previous.  This workout was great because it gave me an option to stop whenever my body told me enough was enough.  I really wanted to hit sub 5:20 but I think that another part of me just wanted to workout to be done.  Billy stepped out for a couple of laps on this one and, when I was solo, my pace faltered on that last interval, preventing me from hitting my goal of sub-520.

Point-to-Point 20 miler in 2:15
The goal for this workout was to run a 10 mile progression steady (620-640) at some point during the run. Since Matt graciously decided to pick us up at the end of the Tobacco Trail, Billy, Amanda and I set off from her house, with the only way to get home literally 20 miles away.  It was a great way to make a long run fun.  Fortunately, my legs felt fantastic, so after coming through 10 miles in 70 minutes, I hit the accelerator and began cruising.  From 10-15 miles, we were hitting about 630-640 pace. From miles 16-20, I felt really good and began hitting 610-620 pace and closed the final, 20th mile in 5:59 pace.

I was really excited about this workout.  Not only did it tell me that I've still got a lot of strength and endurance, it told me that I hadn't lost my marathon touch.  After this long run, I am a bit bummed that I couldn't work it out to do a full marathon this fall, but I just keep reminding myself that I truly do have the rest of my life to continue pursuing my marathon dreams and chipping away at my PRs.

Week in Review

77 Miles
8 Runs
0 Days off
2 Workouts
1 Long Run w. Tempo
1 Big Decision

This was one of those weeks where I just felt really exhausted on most runs.  I got in all of the workouts, but I really only felt really happy about half of them.  Running is always an escape for me to gather my thoughts, but was particularly so this week.  Garrett got into the Duke Physical Therapy program and we have both been weighing the pros and cons of attending Duke versus East Carolina University. Obviously Duke comes with a much higher price tag, but it was the school that Garrett walked away from feeling like it was the perfect fit for him.  If he goes to Duke, it means that we would move to Durham to start a life there together.  I am very fortunate to have a company like Bank of America that will support me from a remote location.  However, I love spending time with all of my co-workers so I would try to come to Charlotte once a week (perhaps on Monday and Tuesday) and stay with friends before heading into the office.  Also, this would allow me to run with some of my Charlotte friends semi-regularly while maintaining important face time in the office.  The decision will be made early next week and I know that we will be just fine with whatever Garrett chooses.

Week in Review

77 miles
1 Workout
12M MLR
16.5M LR
2 Lift Days
2 Snow Runs

Even though nine inches of snow poured through Charlotte on Wednesday and Thursday, I was able to maintain my target mileage for this week.  I snuck in 14 miles on Tuesday as part of my workout, and then got in about 12 miles with Eric on Wednesday morning before the blizzard started.  While it was exciting to get this much snow and was a treat to run in the pretty snow on Thursday, by Friday I was over it.  I was sick of fretting about how it would impact my training schedule for the rest of week and dreaded the thought of having to do a treadmill long run.  Just as quickly as the snow came, it melted away with temps reaching the mid-40s on Thursday afternoon and the mid-50s on Friday.  The weekend was rather nice, except for the sloppy, dirty streets with gritty snow melting away in the storm drains.  With about 18 other people, I knocked out my long run Saturday on the mostly clear roads of uptown and Dilworth before calling it a day at 16.5 miles.  It actually felt rather effortless knocking out over 75 miles for the first time in months.  Clearly, my body is getting used to the mileage.

On Thursday, during the snowfall.

Cicero enjoyed watching the snow fall

Garrett and Nick used the extra time to do yoga together