Weekly workouts – speed bumps

It’s official… My husband and I will be running the Berlin Marathon in September!  My husband and I just put down our deposit for the trip, so it’s locked in.  We didn’t get in to the race via the race lottery.  There were a lot of people who wanted to run this year because it’s the 50th anniversary of the race, so we are going with Marathon Tours which provides a guaranteed entry.  Marathon Tours had a lot of interest too, so they had to have a lottery draw and we made it.  Woohoo!  Other good news… it finally snowed! You know I love that.

My official training plan started this week, and it already had a few speed bumps.  But no worries, the plan is actually 16 weeks long to go along with the full marathon training.  16 weeks is MORE than plenty of time to get ready for the Glass City Half Marathon, so even if I miss a few weeks I’ll be all set. Here’s how my week went down…

Mon – 3 easy miles!  A treadmill run in the morning, followed by a visit to physical therapy in the evening.  I’m trying to stay on top of some hip/IT band issues and get a good list of exercises I can use for the training cycle to hit my problem areas.  My PT works wonders and always corrects the tightness I have in my hamstrings and back.  I just wish PT was free.  My co-pay increased for 2024 so that’s not great!

Tues – 5 miles, track night!  Alan is part of the MIT group (Dave’s Running Marathon in Training), so I tagged along for an indoor track workout too.  The workout was a 2 mile time trial.  Phew!!  My watch said it was 1.82 miles instead of 2 miles.  That could either be my watch not picking up the distance properly, or a discrepancy due to the lane of the track I was in, but either way, I’m saying this was around an 8:20 mile average?  Frankly, it felt exhausting, so yep, that was a good workout!  Brooks was at the track and I tried out a pair of Ghost Max shoes.  They felt good!  I probably should have used my Saucony Endorphin Speeds though because I felt the Ghost Max would have been better for a long run vs a speed workout.

Weds – Rest day!  It was a rest day from working out, but it was a bit of an emotional workout.  Our oldest cat has been having health issues.  She has kidney disease and isn’t doing so well.  As an effort to help her out we took her in for a 3 day IV treatment.  She was basically at the vet for the day and returned to our house in the evening.  Day 1 of treatment was very encouraging and she was eating well when she returned home.

We went to a University of Toledo basketball game. Go Rockets!!

Thurs – Unscheduled rest day.  This was quite a day.  It started out innocently enough with my annual mammogram and MBI (molecular breast imaging, which is done due to my dense breasts).  After the MBI I was asked to get an ultrasound on a specific area.  That has never happened before. The doctor who reviewed my images then wanted to do a biopsy on a spot which was suspicious!  The procedure was immediately ordered and was underway.  I was impressed that the Dr who read the images actually did the biopsy.  I had a lot of thoughts going through my head at this point, as you can imagine!  I was told to take a 24 hour hiatus from doing anything other than chilling out on the couch. My kitty Luna snuggled with me while I watched TV. We were going to take down the Christmas decorations, but that sure wasn’t happening now!

Fri – 2 miles walking.  I was still not feeling up to a run with the soreness from my biopsy, so I did a treadmill walk.  I was surprised when I got a call from my Dr at 4pm.  I was not expecting a call back until Monday or Tuesday.  The sample was benign.  What a relief!!! 

As for my kitty Zoe, days 2 and 3 of IV treatment were not the best for her.  I’m sure the stress of being at the vet with strangers and being poked was adding to the situation, but she seemed to be declining in health now.  Also, they gave her a drug to calm her down, so she seemed really out of it.  We struggle to find food she will eat and she isn’t interested in drinking or doing anything other than sleeping.  She is 14 years old.  She is also my daughter’s baby so this has been difficult for her.  But we are trying our best to help Zoe out.

Sat – 5 miles, “long run”.  It’s the first long run for the training plan, so my mileage for the half marathon plan wasn’t much!  Unfortunately the weather was not ideal for running outside.  We got snow on Friday, and then some rain, and it was a cold icy mess on the trail. And oh, there was the issue of high winds (gusts up to 50 mph!) I was going to be a sub coach (my first gig of the training cycle).  Oh well, treadmill time again!  I was a little nervous about my biopsy incision so I wore two bras to keep everything solid.  I certainly don’t need much support typically and now I can see why some women do run with two bras!  

My Saturday night fun was a group climb event at Adventus for the Run Toledo Ambassadors. Many members of our group was there and we all had a good time. I enjoyed getting more climb time! 🙂 That’s me climbing up the side of the wall. A challenging route!!

Sun – 4 miles on the treadmill. It’s still too darn cold to run outside for me! We did take a trip to see an interesting phenomena. The high winds in our area have pushed Lake Erie away from it’s shore! The water has receded quite a bit. 2nd photo shows what the area looks like in the summer. After a quick picture we had to run back to get inside our car. It feels like -14 out there. Brrrrrrr!!

Need some more inspiration? I’m linking up with Deborah at Confessions of a Mother Runner and Kim from Running on the Fly for their Weekly Run Down. Check out all of the fun blogs there!

Q: Are you hit with the super cold temps where you live?