Week 10: Speedy September Starts
Week 10: September 2 - September 8, 2019
I was really happy with how I trained over the long weekend, but I was nervous about the coming week and the month of September in general. I nicknamed it “Speedy September” because I had a race every Sunday coming up and had to adjust my schedule and energy accordingly. Fifty-three miles were on the program for the weekly volume:
Monday: 6 miles easy (Labor Day)
Tuesday: 1.5 mile warmup, 4 x 1.5 mile @ MP-10 seconds pace w/ 0.5 mile jog, 1.5 mile cooldown
Wednesday: Rest/Crosstrain
Thursday: 10 miles long
Friday: 6 miles easy
Saturday: 8 miles easy
Sunday: 2 mile warmup, 8 miles @ goal MP, 2 miles cooldown (5th Avenue Mile Race Day)
Monday was Labor Day itself, and instead of hanging around the beach house I drove back north. If I had energy by the time I got home I was going to go for at least a short jog, but I was beat from the long run and sunshine all weekend.
Mentally, I felt like I needed to make up for Monday’s loss on Tuesday. I woke up early with the intention of running at dawn and taking more sunrise photos, but my right ankle was being weird for some reason and I was still so sleepy. I went back to bed for another two hours and felt much better after more rest. My stomach also felt a little weird from the long weekend food and disrupted routine. I drank some Nuun, and a slice of leftover pizza because of the number of miles I’d be out there for the day. During the warmup mile my left side of my chest felt tight near the heart, but eventually subsided. Everything was off in the beginning. I worked on trying to get my forward lean, kicking up my heels, and getting my elbows in sync. I achieved full ChiRunning sometimes, but some laps around the track weren’t quite there and I was trying to find it. I had to walk 2 laps to get some of my energy back and ate a Clif Block at around Mile 8 to power me through the speed laps, which definitely felt like something of substance. It was a tough 12-miler, but even with the slow walking laps, my average pace was on the 9 min/mile mark where I need to be race day.
I lifted on Wednesday, so my next run was on Thursday and it did NOT feel great. I had early clients and my stomach was not cooperating in the morning, so I had to wait until that passed and got out early afternoon. I had a cold brew early morning, ate a peanut butter and jelly sandwich about two hours before, and a Clif Block right before. Any time my stomach goes through this type of phase, I get a foggy brain so I just felt so lethargic. My upcoming 5th Avenue Mile race had given out running shorts instead of a shirt, so I tested them out for the first time during this perfect weather. I experimented with my ChiRunning focuses again, and I noticed that I was having trouble shortening my stride; in other words, I needed to let gravity push me forward and use my feet to catch me instead of allowing my foot to reach forward for contact with the ground. Doing so will prevent future leg overuse injuries and that will be important if I want to be able to run for the next 50 years. Sometimes my legs were feeling heavy with the new adjustments. Even though I had to stop at a few traffic lights on the way back down from Midtown East, I was still close to marathon pace. I also learned that as free as those running shorts felt on my pasty white Irish legs, they started giving me chafe marks on my inner thighs from the seams. Note to self: only wear these shorts for a 5k, because if I wore this during the marathon I’d be bleeding so much people would think I got shot in the thighs. Chub rub is a thing after all.
I lifted a little bit on Friday and tended to my tender skin with a ton of petroleum jelly on the thighs. On Saturday, I picked up a fresh pair of Mizuno Wave 15 sneakers since my blue ones were starting to get worn down and I needed to start breaking in whatever pair I planned to wear for the marathon. I didn’t run at all, thinking I’d need my energy for my race the next day.
Sunday was the biggest surprise training day for me. I was conflicted over what to do; the program called for a 12 mile tempo run, but I had a 1-mile race that day. I wanted to test that mile with everything I had in me, but was afraid that I’d have no energy after to go for a long, fast run. In summary, I took a warmup 6-mile run around Central Park, got into my corral, sprinted the mile, got my bagel, and ran another 8 miles right after. So what I thought would be a 1 mile day turned out to be 15 miles total. See my post about the race for further detail.
I only ran for three days and 37 miles for the week, but I made them count!
The NYC skyline from Hoboken the morning of my 5th Avenue Mile race was quite picturesque. I enjoy getting up early for these views.