10/22/07 - 10/28/07
Week Total: 18.1
The highlight of my week and really of this month has been running under the beautiful colors of Autumn. Yesterday it was extremely pleasant to see the red leaves all over the sidewalks. I ran on my own red carpet.
The week suffered a shortage of mileage. A couple of reasons or excuses:
1) Sunrise time in Washington DC was 7:20am, sunset at 6:15pm. Because the long hours at work, and because I do not run outside in the dark I needed to do the runs at the gym. But the gym at the Hyatt Crystal City is extremely hot, probably because the fancy track lighting system above the treadmills where you feel under interrogation. The air conditioning is poor and there are no fans to mitigate the heat. My 3 miles on Tuesday at 4:30 am were miserable hot having very hard time, so I didn't want to deal with miserable 5 miles on Thursday.
2) I couldn't rest my knees properly after the 20-miler of last Saturday. Our project conference room in DC, where I was for more than a week, has a conference table that does not permit "leg extension". So having my knees bended for 10 hours-a-day killed me. On Thursday morning I got up as usual at 4:20 am to run my 5 miles of the day. Prepared my cup of coffee, felt my knees dancing and loose, thought of the hot gym and and went back to bed.
I ran yesterday back in Washington State my planned 15-miler. I pushed it but did not get too much improvement. It was really cold, 41F/4C, but perfectly sunny. I tried my new Breath Thermo shirt and it worked nice, however, when running on shady areas I was cold. I felt better when I completed my 20 miles last week than after this 15-miler. Some of the reasons could be the knees' pain, cold temperatures, and not running enough this week, compared with rested knees, perfect weather in DC (62 and sunny) plus the excitement of discovering a route. These last three are priceless.
Today Sunday I have virtually followed my blogger-friend Chris, bib # 24639 throughout the whole Marine Corps Marathon. It was so excited to see her mile after mile running through a city that has become my third home. At this very minute she just finished the race. She did 5:06:24, 4 minutes better than her target time of 5:10:00. I felt so happy for her, and took that as an incentive for me.
Congratulations Chris. I had goosebumps just thinking on finishing a marathon at Iwo Jima, My Heroes, My Guys.
6 comments:
I applaud you for knowing "when to say when" with the training. I think rest breaks are A-OK sometimes. I bet you're stronger for it!
Seriously, I wish I knew what training plan I was following. The fact of the matter is that I just made sure I started slow so that I would have as in the tank!! Good Luck with your upcoming race!!
Wow, what gorgeous autumn colors!
I wouldn't worry much about having an off week, esp. following a trip across the country. The focus now is getting to race day as healthy as possible, right? RIGHT :-)
Thanks for watching and running with me this weekend! You are going to do so well with your race!
Way to stick with the training. Sometimes you just have to adjust and go with what you have. The bigger runs can feel better than the shorter runs - it just happens that way! :-)
What a beautiful place to run. The colors are so vivid. One view like that makes the whole run worthwhile. Hope these last weeks of preparation go well for you.
We all have a bad week now and then. Rest & get yourself better lady.
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