Week 6 Boston Training ... Thank Goodness for Drop Back Weeks.

7/12/2021

It is funny how 70+ miles can feel so good, but then a drop back 50 mile week can feel so hard despite being 20 miles less. It wasn't the actual running part that is the hard part. What makes it hard for me is that when I have less running to do, I start to negotiate about when I want to do it... and some bad decisions lead to hard runs. But on build weeks, I know I have a lot to do so I make sure I get out the door to do them first and they just get done. But build weeks makes me tired so I like to sleep a little more on rest week.... and that is just what it is. A struggle to get all the needs met each week.

Monday was the day after 4th of July and I was a bit tired from being up late comforting my stressed out dogs who hate that human celebrate freedom by blowing stuff up.

I asked Alanna to meet me early because I had three things planned today and I wanted to get like 10-12 miles before the entire day went sideways.

The day went sideways before it event started so I should have just slept in. I actually made to the part 30 minutes before Alanna with a plan for me to run about 3 miles before I met her.. and then I would see how close to 10-12 I could get... but nope. I just sat in my car answering emails and doing training log reviews before she got there.

Then we ran 6M and I felt like I had enough for the day.

Tuesday was hill repeat day with Dave. This felt good! We revised our hill workout to no longer include rests at the top or bottom of every two reps. 5 sets of two non-stop climbs. We are getting stronger. It felt good even if the pace was slow. The hill is 16% grade and it makes running up everything else seem easy.

This week I decided to make my bed more comfortable so I could get better sleep. I got a new gel/foam mattress topper to replace one that was not helping me rest.

I also decided to get a new Garmin. This was a hard decision because they are incredibly expensive. I chose the 745 and looked forward to it's arrival.

After day off Wednesday, Dave and I ran Speed on Thursdays and I was so incredibly happy. My last .3 was at a 5:25 pace. I was thrilled to be able to move this fast. It has been a while.

Like always now, we take the photo for my blog and then sit in the back of his Forester reviewing data and deciding how to revise the workout. Initially, I wanted to gradually increase the distance of this repeat... but I am really happy running .3s. They feel hard and I get to run fast and I enjoy that part (and hate it at the same time). We decided to keep .3's but to cut back the recovery so we can get one more .3 rep in next week. Then grow from there.

I got my new watch and wanted to give it a try. I felt strong and started easy. This was really not supposed to be a workout. But as the time passed, it felt nice to just open up my stride so I did. This is not fast enough to be anything worth labeling but it was harder than an easy day and it felt nice for me to finish in the low 8s. It has been a while since I just went out and run low 8's as an easy day.

Saturday morning I volunteered with NorthStar Pet Rescue to help out at Transport Day. I get up early, get there at 6:30 am and play with dogs who just got off the transport truck while they wait for their meet-n-greets or fosters to come pick them up. It is so incredibly awesome to spend a morning meeting dogs and trying to help them realize everything is going to be ok. I do that by bring a pouch full of freezer dried liver :) It helps.

Check out all the great work NSPR does here: https://www.northstarpets.org

Yes some of these dogs are available for adoption!

My grand plan was to switch my work shift to Sunday so after Dog Transport I could come home and run my easy 16M... but by the time I started it was late in the afternoon. I was overheating from the start. My new shorts were not working with my bottle and waist pack. I was uncomfortable in every way. I got out to 8M and ran out of water. My stomach started to get cramps from the late lunch I ate before I left for 16 in the hot sun...like that would go well. I ended up having to run/walk maybe 1.5 miles back to the park just to get to a bathroom where I could also get more water. I shut my watch off at 12M called Sid and asked him to come get me. I was done. He was called to work so he couldn't get me.

I decided to walk home the 4 miles, switching my new Garmin to walk mode... which promptly failed to actually function as a GPS and just logged nothing accurately, making me feel really frustrating that I just spent $$$ on something that I wear on my wrist that is supposed to tell me how many breathes I take while sleeping BUT it can't tell me how far I walked? Ugh. (Good news it now it works).

After drinking to rehydrate I stilled weigh in at my very lowest weight in a long time. I knew I was dehydrated out there but this was a lot of lost fluid considering I drank 40 oz on the run.

Sid finally joined me for run while I tested out my old Garmin against my new Garmin both connected to my stryd which just caused more frustration. But I sorted that out. One watch has auto calibration of the stryd pod enabled while the other did not.

What I did learn is to never trust a HR monitor. This is data from the same run from two watches.

So Random Stats: Stryd says I can finally break 4:00 hours in the marathon but we are having Trust Issues this week.

Garmin and I are also having trust issues as well. And apparently the new Garmin does not believe in me as much as the old watch that said I could run a 3:36.

The Garmin does collect a lot more (probably inaccurate or useless) data. But I enjoy it none-the-less. It is a new toy. It was a reward to myself for sticking at this for 6 weeks. It makes me happy to having something updated that does actually work better at tracking elevation gain than my 645 did. I can't wait for hill day to see how far I "actually" do climb!

That is all for now.