September has been quite a month. I ended August and started September with 10 days of travel. I’ve been extremely fortunate to get to travel a lot in my life, but I was in 5 states in 7 days (2 twice) and as you can imagine, that’s a lot of grimy airplanes and lots of germs plus with back to back work events my immune system just couldn’t take it and I ended up with a cold. My training suffered a bit, but week 5 ended up being awesome.
So here’s a quick recap of how things have been going the last 3 weeks:
When we left off, I was still in San Diego and having a great time visiting over the Labor Day holiday weekend. San Diego has been unusually hot every time I’ve visited this year, I’m not sure if I’m bringing the hot weather from Phoenix or if it’s just a coincidence 😉 lol.
Sep 1 – 7
Mon: 45 Min run Actual: 40:10, 4 miles, 10:03 avg pace. We went out around 2pm and it was HOT!!! I never run during the day like that and it really hits me hard being in the sun like that. Afterwards, because we are extreme overachievers, we hiked to the top of Cowles Mountain, which is about 1,500 ft up and then ran down. Love the downhill!!
Tues: Supposed to be a 30 min easy run Actual: Rest Day I took the red-eye to Nashville for a work event
Wed: Rest Day due to travel Actual: lots of walking
Thu: 30 min run – Actual: 60:32, 6.12 mi, 9:53 avg pace. One of the great things about these work events is getting to run with some of my co-workers that live in other states, we always go out and check out the city on foot 🙂 These runs are always fun and a great way to see the city (esp. since that is really the only time we have to explore since the meetings go late)
Fri: 20 min easy run – Actual: 25 min, 2.98 mi, 8:23 avg pace. I only had a short amount of time but the others I ran with wanted a minimum of 3 miles so we pushed hard and did a super fast 3 (my nikeplus was a little off). I woke up with a sore throat and a bit of congestion but pushed thru drinking cup after cup of hot green tea. I had to finish up event day #2 and then fly to CA that evening.
Sat: Rest Day – Actual: lots and lots of walking all over Ventura Beach, CA with my friends and a lot of sleep, I couldn’t really hear out of my right ear because of congestion and I was exhausted but not super sick feeling
Sun: Ventura Beach Marathon (Half Marathon) Recap coming later this week!!
Sep 8 – 14
Mon: Well deserved rest day – this was the day Phoenix flooded lol – so so so much rain and I ended up working a half day from home before attempting to venture in to work because we had more events starting that evening
Tues: 45 min run, 10 min warm-up, 3 miles at 9:15 pace, cool down – Actual: 3 miles, 43:51, 14:37 avg pace – super tight calves, lots of walking, in fact I think I walked most of this
Wed: 30 min easy run – Actual: attempted Tuesday’s workout: 46:06, 4.5 miles, 10:15 avg pace. Calves were still tight and I felt really lethargic, it really was all I could do to finish this workout.
Thu: 45 min track session – Actual: Rest Day
Fri: 30 min easy run – Actual: Sick Day (Rest Day)
Sat: 1hr 54 min 12 mile run – Actually overslept I still wasn’t feeling 100%
Sun: attempted my long run – ended up with 1hr 33 min, 9 miles, 10:21 avg pace. Not a fun run at all, I was definitely not 100%, probably not even 75% but I did the best I could.
Sep 15 – 21
Mon: 45 min run 10 min warm up, 3 mi 9:15 pace cool down – Actual: 47:09, 4.69 miles, 10:03 avg pace – Ugh, this run was so so hot – I think my Garmin said it was 99 degrees!! I switched back to my Newton Distance and my legs did feel a bit better
Tues: 40 min, 4.3 mi – Actual: 32:24, 4 miles, 8:06 avg pace!! Where did that come from?? I hit a PR in the 5k during this run and it felt awesome. 75 min PT session to have my calves work on before might have helped a bit 😉
Wed: 30 min, easy 3 miles – Actual: 26:41, 3 miles, 8:54 avg pace. OMG so many mosquitos! I can’t wait for my nice dry Arizona air to come back.
Thu: 45 min on the bike & 30 min strength training – Actual: 30 min on the bike 9.5 miles & 30 min strength training (2×12 10 Nautilus machines, 50 burpees)
Fri: 30 min run – Actual: Rest Day
Sat: 2hr 22 min 15 miles – Actual: 2hr 25 min, 15.1 miles, 9:36 avg pace. I was doing great on this run and totally would have hit my number, but somehow I ended up eating it around 13.5. I have no idea what happened but thank goodness, I only have a few battle scars and no permanent damage or a broken iPhone 6 (I had just gotten it the night before).
Sun: Rest Day – Actual: Rest Day with a bit more walking than normal
All in all these past three weeks have been kind of up and down, I’m not sure how I pulled out the Tuesday super fast run, but it has helped with my running confidence quite a bit. I’m looking forward to the next week and keeping up the good runs. I think we all know that they all can’t be good, but when you are in a rut with a lot of runs that aren’t going to plan, it can get incredibly frustrating. 8 more weeks to Vegas!!