Road to Boston: Week 5

What a week! I'm really proud of what I was able to accomplish this week. My coach used a new and different approach to increasing volume that I have never done before and I liked it. It has given me a lot of confidence moving forward. This whole time I've felt really behind in terms of my postpartum comeback and also in terms of training for a sub 3:00 hour Boston Marathon. My pregnant runner peers all surpassed me in their comeback because I had some issues (and am still not totally out of the woods) recovering from pregnancy. Without getting into the postpartum issue I'm still battling, I'm just going to say that it's really  hard to maintain confidence in my own training when a lot of people are up to 14 mile long runs for Boston and 60 mile weeks. This week I'm feeling in the game... a tad behind, but in striking range. 

So I've been running 5 days a week and the most obvious way to increase volume is to, what? Add a day of running, right? That's not what we did. In fact, we did the exact opposite. I ran higher volume in 4 days of running than I did in any week that had 5 so far. Why? well, I have an extra recovery day! We can push the day to day mileage to be a bit longer without as much risk of injury because I'm getting 3 days of no running. Recover, recover, recover. 

"Train hard, Recover Harder"

I've never done things this way before and I was intimidated and scared... but also, this is why I'm training with a new coach... Change is where progress happens. So, what did the week look like? 

Monday: 1 hour on the bike: This is a recovery day, but I"m gaining confidence from doing an hour of work since it shows me that I can fit an hour in. Someday this might be an hour of easy running... and I wont have any excuse to not do it because of x,y, and z... I will be able to look back and say "hey, it may have been easy biking... but an hour is an hour... you have time for this"

Tuesday: Morning run, 7.1 miles, 8:27, Hilly and snowy. Good morning snow! I wasn't expecting this! But I spent my whole night prepping for a morning run (getting lunch prepared, laying out running clothes, laying out work clothes, washing pump bottles, etc.... Umm... just going to bed at a reasonable hour is hard! it's amazing how much you need to get ready just to fit in a morning run!) I'll be damned if I let an inch or two of snow get in my way. Peace out homestead, I'm hitting the roads!  This run was awesome. 

Quite Morning in Farmville

Wednesday: Morning Disaster, still fit in 8 at 8:39/mi. Raea refuses to sleep these days, Maebel keeps me (partially) up all night because she thinks I'm a human pacifier.... and so getting up and having both girls awake made it hard to get out the door, but I knew that I could fit in 70 minutes and still make it to work. I ran really really easy because a 7 miler and an 8 miler is the most consecutive mileage (without a day off) I've done so far so I wanted to listen to my body. My hamstring and groin don't love the run, but my spirit certainly did. God, I might actually start liking morning runs! 

I still have time for this, Right?

Thursday: One hour on the bike. #basic. Not much to report here. Matt was home so I was able to get started before both girls were in bed. I got Maebel down and he took care of Raea. So So NICE! I also started committing to dreamfeeding Maebel at 9:30 and then heading right to bed. The dream feeding seems to buy me more time before her wake up. 

Friday: 10 Miles in treacherous snow... but it was beautiful! 9:14/mi. I timed everything perfect. I got up at 5:00 to feed Maebel, then about 5:20 she was done and back to sleep so I started putting on my clothes and then I got a call for a 2 hour delay. I maybe got another 20 minutes of very light sleep until Raea was up. I had time to eat breakfast and wait until it was a bit lighter before I got started. I had mapped a nice back road loop the night before, but the roads were really terrible so I trotted over to the main road (but not busy at commute because I went in the direction of Western Ma, and basically no one travels that way in the morning... and no one lives that way.... It was a lot of effort to run 9:14 pace but it was also really gentle on my body to land in the soft snow, but I cautiously proceeded because we all know those are the famous last words: "very low impact"...... 

Yes, I wear the same clothes everyday.

Easily the best the roads looked all morning....

Saturday: Totally OFF! I didn't even have drills today so I literally chilled with the girls most of the day. Then I basically just ran errands all day to prep for the Super Bowl and then took an Epsom Salt bath, and did some light stretching to prep myself for the long run. 

Sunday: 13 Miles, 7:50/mi with Fartlek across the last 2 miles: I was supposed to do the fartlek on Friday but that was not happening with the snow so I added it to today. We ran on the rail trail in Hudson which had just enough ice patches to really slow your pace at times, but just few enough ice patches to make you say "maybe the rail trail isn't a good idea"... The first mile was pretty clear the next 6 out and back were rough, then it was clear again. My fartlek sections are in my Garmin Connect data below. I was very surprised to run in the 6:00/'mi range for any amount  of time after so many miles in my legs. A good sign for things to come for sure! 

Total: 38.2
Drills: 4x (well, I have to do them during the Superbowl so I will get to 4)
R8: Daily
Epsom Salt: 2x
Chiropractor: 1x
Ice Bath: 1x

Some people were asking about fuel. I typically fuel with Nuun during runs instead and Gen Ucan before (although, truth be told, I don't love the way Ucan tastes, but you might, and I always feel fine with it). Below are some of the products I use. I'm a huge fan of the Huma gels, especially the coconut water infused ones (white). Help support this blog by purchasing anything from the links you see! I'll never add something I don't also use or isn't from a brand I believe in. Thanks for your support! 

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GO PATS! 

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