- Training for: Glass City Marathon, April 28th
- Miles run: 50 this week
50 miles!! 50!! Despite having a bit of a wonky knee, my training has really ramped up this week. I ended up with 50 miles for the week, which is my highest in forever. Ran 6 days this week, and lived to tell 🙂
Monday – 6 miles, intervals – treadmill. This is typically my easy day, but needed to switch up my workouts this week. 10 mins warm up, 3 x 1600m with 3 min rest, then cool down 10 mins. This went decent enough. The target pace was 7:50-8:20, so I did 8:00 miles for the fast part. I got through it, and walked during the 3 mins rest. Happy Monday!
Tuesday – 5 <early> miles. 5 at 5am! It was the 3rd annual Paczki run, on Fat Tuesday. If you’re not familiar with Paczkis, they are a Polish donut that is filled with fruits or creme and is made a bit richer than regular donuts. They only sell them around here for Fat Tuesday.
We ran our 5 miles, and made sure we were one of the first ones to get our treats when the shop opened at 6am.
Did I mention it was freaking sub freezing?? Friends and donuts are the only reason I’ll be getting up that early in the super cold!
Well that, and I was also excited to wear my “glow vest” again. My sparkly Athleta hat was pretty great too.
Wednesday – 6 easy treadmill miles.
Thursday – 9 miles, tempo day! This run was 5 miles of pace miles alternating with threshold pace, sandwiched with 2 miles each of warm up and cool down. Playing with marathon pace is interesting (and a good practice!). I wasn’t super fast – but I did get my paces within my plan’s “range”, so I’m happy with that!
Knee update – I was actually having pain on my toe from a blister last week and thought it was infected. I went to the Dr to have him check that out and also to look at my knee. It was the most disappointing visit ever! My toe was not infected (boo, gotta let it get better on it’s own) and he said I just need to stretch my knee before I run! What?? No PT exercises or anything. So I guess that’s the A-OK to keep running on it. Still, I feel like my diagnosis was slacking a little. 🙁
Friday – 5 easy miles around the ‘hood. Fun trivia – 5 miles covers every street in my neighborhood. How convenient!
Saturday – 18 miles long run…. + .75 “filler” miles! I was lucky enough to have two friends join me for this run. Lori ran 10 miles (7 with us) and Shannon ran her 14 miles with me. I was nervous about running so far. 18 is a big deal!! I feel like this went pretty well. The only part that could have gone better is when we were going to run 4 miles at marathon pace, at mile 11. I made it through 3 miles, and then thought we were done with that. At that point I pretty much checked out mentally and physically and I’m not sure I would have been able to do another mile at that pace!
One fun part of the run was when I approach something laying on the trail and I realized it was my glove! I didn’t even know I had dropped it. Lucky that!
Post run we had some fun taking pictures. I was super proud to have accomplished that run!
Here’s proof to me that I’m getting stronger: my recovery said only 23 hours! At the start of the plan it would have said something like 5 days!!
After a nap, and snuggling with my kitty, I had some business to finish. I noticed that my weekly mileage was 49.3 miles!
Well, I couldn’t let that go, so I ran another .76 miles to top it off to 50. Woot!!
Sunday – Rest!!
Next week I’ll be cutting back in miles a bit, but right now this is all feeling good enough. I’ll do a few exercises in hopes that my knee issue will go away completely and keep up with icing it when needed.
Looking for some inspiration? This week I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Wrap. Lots of great stuff to read in all of the blogs there!
Q: Do you like to incorporate some pace miles into your long runs, or just leave them long and steady?
Those pace miles were killer. Not a confidence boost!
Q: Do you regularly go for any early runs outside?
Nope! It’s usually the treadmill for me when it’s dark out!
Q: Do they sell Paczkis where you live?
Paczkis! So good.
COngrats on amazing week and nicely done with the filler miles. Hope your knee is on the mend soon. Glad the toe isn’t infected
Cari recently posted…Review: The Plant Based Runner
Getting my toe and knee checked out were the most expensive (time and cost) visit I’ve had to be told to stretch and put a bandaid on it. LOL! Oh well, better safe than sorry.
50!!!! Go girl!!!!!!!!!!!! I totally missed fat tuesday!!! I swear, it wasn’t mentioned anywhere!
I probably would have missed it too – no one brought any treats to work, which was surprising! Glad I’ve got my friends to keep me up alerted to these events. 50 miles is crazy mileage for me. I remember being excited to hit 20 miles a week recently!
I had not heard of Paczki’s until another friend posted about them this week. I ended up working late on Tuesday, so I didn’t even both with pancakes for dinner. Nice mileage – love the sparkly Athleta hat.
Coco recently posted…Logging Miles Again
I probably wouldn’t even be able to tell between a regular donut and a Paczki, but I’ll never say No to a good treat like that!
I was debating on the hat… like, do I really need another running hat? Turns out I did! Bonus that black goes with everything I own.
I love your 5 at 5 LOL because I LOVE them….except my runner friend is recovering from knee surgery, so she and I have not done our weekly #5at5 since before Christmas. And, it’s been so cold, windy, snow-laden and icy, that it has not been safe for me to be out there all alone at 5 a.m. THus, I’ve been doing some of the 5-milers on the treadmill…and those are not as fun or easy LOL Wow…50 miles! That’s incredible….hope that knee keeps hanging in there for you. Thanks for linking with us for the WRD 😉
I have to give you some serious kudos for those 5am workouts! That’s so early!! Thanks for hosting the linkup. I love meeting all these new (to me) bloggers.
Wooo SOLID workouts this week! 50 miles is big! I’ve definitely run some filler miles to reach a certain number haha. Hope your knee holds up this coming week.
Becca | Rabbit Food Runner recently posted…Marathon Training During Expo West
This week is a cutback week. 45 miles is going to seem so lame!!
What a stellar week of training for you! That is a lot of miles. Take care of your knee. Thanks for linking up today
Deborah Brooks recently posted…Weekly Run Down Springing Forward
Thanks so much for hosting!!
That’s a lot of miles, well done! Didn’t spot any Paczkis around here but there must have been some somewhere. My Polish cousin-in-law was definitely working on some doughnuts down on the South Coast!
Liz Dexter recently posted…Sedate lady running 04-10 March 2019 #amrunning #running #FebruaryFive
I guess in general my area must have a large Polish community, because around my close area it’s really not. I will gladly welcome this tradition though!
Good job on the 50! That is about my max during marathon training. I try to do the last few miles of my long runs at marathon pace to get a feel for running that pace on tired legs. All of my runs are in the early morning but only after the sun rises. Living in Chicago, Paczkis are everywhere on Fat Tuesday. Impossible to avoid eating at least one.
I have modified my plan a little going forward from here to include some longer runs, but I don’t think I’ll be running much more than 50 miles. Those pace miles were really hard… perhaps that BQ will be a long shot! Darn BBA for changing the qualifying times!
I like that hat! Perfect for running in the dark!
Do all paczkis have a filling?
Great job on 50 miles this week with that crazy weather!
They do all have fillings! You can get them glazed, or powdered. Powdered were such a mess. Glazed is messy enough for me!
Very familiar with paczkis! Last year we went to Poland twice where they sell them daily! Wonder why I came back “Fuller” after those trips … (between the donuts, pierogis and beer it’s pretty obvious…)
You got so many miles in! I’d have rounded my mileage up as well! I have to admit I don’t miss the long runs right now. 18 mile OMG. That’s 29km … I haven’t run that far since the Amsterdam marathon in October!
I usually just try to get a good average pace in my long runs. Who knows what my trainer will have me do for Chicago. I do find it challenging to switch gears in a long run.
I’m not very good at running early anymore. It used to be a necessity because I worked far from home and my commute was minimum 4 hours in total each day. Now I struggle to get out of bed (later) on time for a 10 min commute!
4 hour commute? Wow! Was that an every day thing? How many years did you work that way? Ditto for me – I have a 10 min commute and still can’t seem to get out the door on time. Ugh.
Every workday for 7 long years… I loved the company (Starbucks at the roasting plant) but it wasn’t so great for my health. My job now isn’t so exciting but it pays the bills, I have great colleagues and it’s super relaxed.
That seems odd that all you need to do is stretch your knee — hope that works! Congrats on the 18 miler. That’s the farthest I’ve ever run!
I like my long runs slow & steady. 😊
No paczis here — probably a good thing!
Odd, right? How do I stretch my knee?? I really need to Google that more because I usually just forget to do it until after I run. I guess it’s a good thing that it’s not painful enough that it would remind me to stretch! Is just not “right”. I think I’m going to tackle 29 miles this weekend. Eeek!
Wow! 29 miles is a lotta miles. Good luck!