When a Training Run Becomes a Race

Howdy! I’m linking up this week over at  Mississippi Piddlin and HoHo Runs as well as at Run Megan Run to catch up on this past week.

With only one “real” week of school left, the end-of-year mania is stirring up: benchmarks, awards, field day, OH MY. I finally nailed down some wedding-related details this week, including the last big task of booking our tent and rentals. Now it’s on to smaller details like welcome bags, table numbers, and favors (which Mr. Groom and I are “crafting” together). The tent was unnecessarily stressing me out because a.) I didn’t really want one and b.) I didn’t realize how RIDICULOUSLY EXPENSIVE they are. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of the tent, because our venue has some really beautiful, very old oak trees and I didn’t want to hide them. However, the estate’s house isn’t large enough to hold all of our guests, and my mom was adamant that we get a tent in case we have record-setting rain like we did this past October. Yay! Obviously she won that debate and here I am with a slightly messed-up budget. It’s only money, right? 🙂

Anyway, on to the running part of this week. It was actually a race week for me, but I didn’t have a goal in mind for this one. The forecast all week predicted rain, and having just run my big half three weeks ago, I was just looking to finish this one.

Monday | Rest

Thank goodness there was no workout on the schedule for today. Lady somehow ran into the retaining wall outside last Sunday while she and Molly were wrestling and scraped up her side pretty badly. We cleaned her up the best we could, but when I got home from work on Monday afternoon, she had had a blowout in her crate. It was EVERYWHERE. So after the lovely experience of cleaning up doggy doo from her bed, blankets, and Kong, and scrubbing her crate, and cleaning the surrounding carpet, I took her to the vet to see what was going on. I’m happy to say that her parasite tests were negative and she is healing up nicely now! Thankfully, she didn’t need stitches, but by the time I got home, I was exhausted. Thank goodness for rest days!

Tuesday | 3 Mile Progressive Run

It rained on Tuesday, so I took my workout to the treadmill. I definitely got bored, even with some higher inclines thrown in, but it wasn’t too bad. Pretty uneventful, though. After I finished, I did strength training on my legs/lower body for about 30 minutes or so, which I didn’t keep track of. Maybe I should start doing that…

3.00 miles; 10:36/10:08/9:18 

Wednesday | Speedwork

I won’t lie. I bribed myself with pizza to get through this workout. Judge me if you want. I hit the track around 6 on Wednesday to tackle some fartleks. After warming up for one mile, I alternated 2 minutes of faster running with 2 minutes of easier running for 3.5 miles, then had a .5 mile cooldown. I peaked in mile 3, but managed to keep all of my surges between about a 7:30-8:30 pace. I followed this victory by bringing my sweaty, probably smelly self to pizza and trivia with Jeff (I am a font of useless knowledge. It’s my forte). Life is all about balance, y’all. 🙂

5.01 miles; 46:45; 9:20 pace

Thursday | 3 miles easy

I skipped this run. Teeheehee. My school celebrated its 80th Anniversary with a snazzy gala, so I ended up sticking around until it ended at 7:00. By the time I got home, I was pooped, and combined with the tough workout from Wednesday, I was not feeling a run.

Friday | Cross

I had planned to skip cross-training today because I knew I had a race coming the next day, and while I wasn’t planning on actually racing, I still wanted to have fresh legs so I could at least finish comfortably. Looks like this logic worked!

Saturday | Aiken Triple Crown 10-Miler

And here we are… The race I didn’t plan on racing. When I first registered for this one, it was mostly driven by the fact that it was part of Aiken’s newly created Triple Crown Race Series (which included a 5k and Half Marathon). The actual Triple Crown race was once held annually, but this year was its first running in several years. The forecast did not look optimistic for the morning of the race, but when I woke up, the skies looked fairly clear. I hate running without music and was less than excited at the prospect of running 10 miles listening to myself breathe. 🙂 I took a chance and bought my phone, and there was no rain! It poured all night on Friday, though, which was perfect because about two miles of this bad boy were on the dirt horse roads that are common in Aiken. We kicked off at 7:30 AM with me in the middle of the pack. I started out at a decently comfortable pace, but couldn’t keep from pushing myself. I felt strong throughout this whole race, despite not doing much of a taper (if at all) or having a strategy. Maybe that’s what helped me–just getting out there and running, and not worrying about when I’d take my GU, or whether to walk the water stops. I just ran it. Looking at my splits definitely makes me smile, because I was able to keep up a great pace throughout and had a really strong finish.

I crossed the finish line and waited for other runners to finish and got some pictures with my Sole Sisters. 🙂

Then the awards started, and I was very surprised when…

This happened! I’m lucky to be able to run in a small town, because I know I could never place in a larger race. But I’ll take it!

My official chip time was 1:31:40, but I also clocked my fastest 10K yet, according to my Garmin, with a time of 55:59. Hopefully I can beat that at the Peachtree this summer!

10 miles; 1:31:40; 9:07 pace

Total Weekly Miles: 18

All in all, not a big week in the mileage category, but a great week for speedwork and racing. Here’s to the last week of school — next week is all about field day and our farewell to first grade celebrations!