Pittsburgh Marathon Training – Week 1!

The first week of training is in the books! This was a pretty great week; all things considered, the weather was pretty mild (cold, of course, but no snow or ice!) and I had no problem getting all of my workouts in!

Monday – I love kicking a training plan off with a rest day. If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll see that I nailed it.

Boom.   I also spy a Wilbur Tail (#whereswilbur)

Tuesday – First run of the week/training cycle! 3 easy miles (33:14/11:05 pace)on the treadmill . I always start out slow on the treadmill and try to finish fast (to simulate a fast finish in a race), so my pace looks normal for me but in reality, it’s usually an all-out sprint at the end!

Wednesday – Strength Training!

Thursday – My first speed session and I decided to take this one outside. Paces always feel so different to me outside than they do on the treadmill. I’m pretty sure I would have a much harder time pulling these splits off on a treadmill, if I could do them at all. Since this is the first week, I eased into it with 3 great progression miles.

Like lightning!

I really love progression runs and hoping they will help me to stay disciplined to start the first few miles of the marathon slower and gradually increase my pace as the race goes on.

Friday – Strength Training, again! Since the New Year, I’ve been really good about hitting the weights 2x per week. I don’t have a lot of equipment since I work out in my basement, but am trying to get the most out of what I have. I’d like to see a few muscles out of this! 🙂

Saturday – Hills. In my downtime, I wasn’t as consistent with hill training as I had been. Couple that with more treadmill runs than I think I’ve ever done in my life and I could see a noticeable decrease in my hill fitness.

I’m not worried though – I’m sure I will bounce back fairly quickly. Just by looking at the numbers, it doesn’t look like I lost a lot but it took some serious effort to sustain that!  From now on, anytime I need to run on the treadmill I’m going to start changing the incline around, instead of just the speed. That won’t totally make up for what I’m missing out on, but it should help. I’m also hoping that I will be able to limit my treadmill runs to just once a week on my easy day. I know that won’t always be the case but I can hope! 4 Miles (45:50/11:27 pace)

Sunday – I met Jennifer at North Park for our long run.  We were scheduled for 9 miles (me) and 6 miles (Jennifer) so we tossed a few route ideas around, that would accommodate us both and decided on the Frigid Five Miler course. Rather than try to do mid-run math and find a spot to turn around at, I decided to add on one more mile and make it an even 10.  The Weather Channel App said it was 42 degrees, so I used the opportunity to grace the other runners of North Park with my pasty, neon white legs and wear shorts.

You need sunglasses for those bad boys

The first 5 miles was great – I will never believe how fast the miles go when you have someone to talk to. As we tackled the little rollers of the course, I was reminded how remote that section of North Park is…and I started to get a little nervous about running another 5 by myself.  We passed our cars right before we started our second climb up the mountain and I grabbed my cell phone; I told Jennifer that way you guys could use the GPS tracker on it to find my body when I go missing up there. You think I’m kidding but let me refer you to cases 1 & 2 and tell me how crazy I am. Seriously though, safety first. We reached the top of the hill at the Lodge, and it was time to say goodbye to Jennifer (who crushed the hill both times!) so I could start my last 4 miles solo. I also reminded her of my description – grey and purple shorts, grey and purple shirt, ponytail, aviators….just in case.  I ran the last 4 miles a smidge faster than the first time – it was getting cold and rainy and suddenly the shorts seemed like a really stupid idea. I saw a few people here and there, but for the most part it was empty and I kind of really liked it (minus the whole being afraid of a mountain man stealing me and making me his child bride thing, that is).  I made it back to my car unscathed, except for a few frozen fingers that took a few minutes to come back to life.

I think it’s obvious where the hills were!

My overall pace was right on target, but my mile splits were kind of all over the place. As many other have said though, that is a really tough course to plan for! I tried to monitor my effort – I was able to truck up the biiiiig hill both times with no stopping or walking, and I was also able to use the level and downhill sections to get my breathing and form under control.

So pretty up there!

I finished the week with 20 miles (1 more than I planned for), and I’m feeling really good! Hopefully the momentum carries into next week.  In the coming weeks I want to continue to work on my strength training (that spare tire around my middle seriously needs to go!!), and focus on my nutrition to make sure I’m fueling my workouts!

 

How was your week of training?

Help me out – what are your favorite things to incorporate into your strength workouts? I’ve started doing single leg dead lifts with just a 10lb dumbbell and WOW! I can always feel it the next day!

Weekly Recap 12/22-12/28

Happy Monday! I am coming off a 23 (technically 25, but I’ll get to that) mile week and am feeling great! I’m still working on my marathon training plan – I’m trying to mesh something between the beginner and intermediate plans because the beginner plan is too low volume but the intermediate is like wowzas, intense.  Right now I’m still thinking 4 days a week with 1 easy, 1 speed, 1 hill, 1 long; two of those will be shorter weekday runs (the easy and speed for now) and the other two will be weekend runs with a lot more miles.  I just have to assign some numbers to those days!

Getting into my 25, but really 23 mile, week:

Monday was a rest day – I had Christmas shopping to do and by the time I made home from two lousy stores (Giant Eagle and Wine and Spirits) and was spent. My patience had been spent before I left the first store so by the time I walked through my kitchen door all I wanted to do was lay on the couch. So I did. With a Woodchuck  don’t judge. I actually had several more things to purchase, but could only take so many stores at a time so I split my shopping up over the last 3 days….otherwise there was a good chance you would have seen me on the 6:00 news for flipping out on someone, somewhere.

Tuesday I had more Christmas shopping to do after work so I did that and met some friends for drinks after. I knew that I would be out for most of the evening so I did my weights first thing in the morning. I went heavy (for me) with many of the sets and could feel it in my shoulders for days!

I had Wednesday off from work, so I planned on getting a longish run in but at the last minute Tall One decided to join me as long as we could run/walk. I am always thrilled when he decides to run with me, so I happily agreed to this and we took off for 3 miles of running alternating with walk breaks. I have to be honest, I am really glad we only did 3 miles because I was beat by the end. Mr. 6’4” has quite the long stride and naturally falls into a 9:30 or better pace when running so I was basically sprinting to keep up! I’m calling this my speed work for the week!

I let Tall One control the distance – we would typically pick different landmarks to run to, and then pick another one to walk to. It worked out pretty well!

After our run, I made a special Christmas Eve treat: PANCAKES! We never have these at home, so we were both pretty excited. I topped mine with walnuts that I toasted and tossed with cinnamon sugar, real maple syrup, and a healthy smidge of butter. I had 2 big fluffy cakes and was a happy camper!

Blurry cakes. Tasted much better than they look!

I had 3 more Christmas presents (and 1 birthday present) to buy so we headed out to collect those.

After dinner we went for a 3 mile walk (which is where the 25 total miles comes from) since it was SO nice outside. You can’t waste 60 degrees and sunny ANY day, let alone Christmas Eve in Pittsburgh!

Thursday was Christmas, and I was hosting my family for lunch so I was up early to get a quick 3 mile run in.  I was even happier that I spent so much time in the sun the day before because it was cold, windy and a little rainy. I wanted to run a little more, but I had lots of food to prep and cook so I called it at 3 miles in 33:51 (11:16 pace).

We put on quite the little spread for lunch. The holidays were really hard for me this year, so it was really nice to be able to spend this day together and being surrounded by family.

YUM

I had to work Friday, but they sent us home early (YAY!!!) so we went for another walk that evening. I forgot to wear my Garmin and I’m not sure how far we went so I didn’t count it in my weekly totals. I think it was 3 miles but it could have been closer to 4. It was another beautiful day, so I was happy to be outside enjoying the sunshine and fresh air!

I met Jennifer at North Park for our 10 mile long run on Saturday. I’m thinking that all of the holiday snacks and goodies finally caught up to me because this run was tough! I also didn’t eat a very big meal the night before – I wasn’t that hungry AND I forgot that we were meeting on Saturday instead of Sunday, so I just had a good old fashioned PB & J instead of my normal pre run pasta dinner. I did eat a substantial breakfast, but that apparently still was not enough!  It seemed much colder than what the thermometers said and everything just required a lot more effort on this run. We finished 10 in 1:58 for an 11:50 pace. It was really nice to catch up with Jennifer and we spent a good while talking about Pittsburgh and our goals for the race! One of the BEST parts of a training partner is being able to toss ideas back and forth and get outside opinions and advice!  I know this run took a lot out of me, because I ended up taking an unplanned nap later that afternoon! I was reading a book…and the next thing I knew I was covered in cats and snoring!

Splits

 Sunday was another cold and rainy/misty morning. I suited for my hill run with no particular distance in mind. I decided to try out a new route and I had no idea what the mileage would be so I told myself that “somewhere between 4-6 miles” would be acceptable! I ended up right in the middle with 5.5 hard miles!

Love it!

 

These hills were intense and a few times I had flashback to Nittany Valley so I knew that I picked a good route.  I am REALLY excited to add this to marathon training in a few weeks! I have no idea what the second half of the marathon course is like and I’m hoping that this will help prepare me for that! I ran 5.5 in 1:02 for an 11:23 pace

Overall, this was a good week! Lots of good food, and good miles! As always, I slacked on my weight training but becoming more diligent in that area is absolutely on my list of 2015 goals (that I will hopefully be posting soon!).