RnR Savannah / St. Jude Half Marathon Training: Weeks 8-10

Week 10 is done. Thus we mark the halfway point from the beginning of training to the St. Jude Memphis Half Marathon, and six weeks until Savannah.

This training cycle has sucked. It’s not that I don’t love running or training, it’s that I’m struggling to get out of my body and mind what I feel like it should be able to give me. I’ve never had so many miserable long runs. I haven’t managed to pull off a proper tempo run since Week 5. I’ve half-assed at least one hard running workout that I can think of, and I’ve missed other runs entirely.

I’ve also eaten like shit, drank more than I should, traveled more than I cared to (none of it for pleasure), and slept too little. I don’t respond well when I beat myself up for these behaviors, so I’ll just think of prospective lifestyle changes as “room for improvement.”

Adding strength training has altered my training/recovery dynamic, and learning this new balance has derailed my training more than once. I’m proud that I’ve stuck with it, continued to experiment, and learned a lot about listening to my body and knowing when I can push harder and when I need to back off. That lesson alone is so much more important than the outcome of one training cycle.

The same goes for injuries. I’ve had a few warning signs of potential looming injuries, and I somehow figured out what I think was the root cause, aggressively addressed it, and backed off of training enough to keep the issue from becoming a full-blown injury. The SI joint pain made me skip a couple of runs, but it also may have made me a stronger runner. When I was running through it, it forced me to keep my pelvis neutral which helps so much with getting my glutes to fire.

The reality is that I haven’t gotten in all the miles that I hoped to in preparation for these half marathons, so I’m still unsure about any race goals. My guess is that I’ll make St. Jude my goal race – I think I have enough time left to get in some good training and set up a possible PR.

Anyway, here’s the three weeks of recap, in a condensed format.

Week 8: 27 miles

• Monday, 9/7: Rest
• Tuesday, 9/8: 4 miles
• Wednesday, 9/9: 7 miles (plan 3-6 @ tempo); mobility class
  • I was too aggressive at the beginning of this tempo run – the first two tempo miles were 8:36 & 8:34. I hit an uphill stretch in the third mile, and got really frustrated and took a jogging recovery after a little over half a mile uphill (at an 8:56/mile pace). After recovering for a third of a mile, I ran another mile in 8:49. Overall average pace for the tempo portion was 8:52/mile.
• Thursday, 9/10: 6 easy miles; strides; strength training
• Friday, 9/11: Rest
• Saturday, 9/12: Rest
• Sunday, 9/13: 11 miles @ 10:40/mile

Week 9: 20 miles

• Monday, 9/14: Rest
• Tuesday, 9/15: 8 miles (plan: 3-7 tempo); strength training; tabata core workout
  • I didn’t do myself any favors by trying this run on an even hillier route and in the lunchtime heat. I ran the first two tempo miles in the 8:40s before I just quit. I was way too concerned with hitting the number on my watch to acknowledge that I was working too hard in the first two miles. I ran a moderate-to-comfortably-hard effort for the remaining 3 faster miles without looking at my watch, those miles were all around the 9:10-9:30 range. I wonder how I would have done with a consistent effort for all 5 miles. Lesson learned. (Or was it, when the same damn thing happened last week?)
• Wednesday, 9/16: 3 recovery miles; Power yoga+pilates; mobility class
  • This was too hard for a recovery day; I shouldn’t have gone to the power yoga+pilates class. I wish I enjoyed pilates. [le sigh]
    

    There’s a historic cemetery not far from my apartment, and I love the calm of it for recovery runs.

• Thursday, 9/17: 6 miles; strides; strength training
  • Squat day! I loved the strength workout, which in addition to 5×5 sets of squats, also included pull-ups, split squats with kettlebells, side lunges with a kettlebell, some core work (really tough after yesterday’s yoga/pilates), and so many one-arm kettlebell swings I lost count. I really felt the fatigue from the rest of the week’s workouts.
• Friday, 9/18: REST SWEET REST; restorative yoga
  • I was really sore, unsurprisingly. We walked to Turner Field for the Braves game (about a mile from my apartment), which I hoped would be some good “active recovery.” But that and restorative yoga were all about all I had to give physically. OMGEXHAUSTED.
• Saturday, 9/19: 3 mile recovery run
  • I was even more sore than Friday, and my muscles were so stiff – I woke up and couldn’t really walk without altering my gait. Not a good situation for a long run. I spent some time foam rolling and trying to show some love to my sore muscles, and finally felt up to a 3 mile recovery run.
• Sunday, 9/20: Rest
  • I could have done the long run, but I was about to leave town for the week, and I decided that spending a little time with Jeff was more important. He’s a full-time grad student, a teaching assistant, and a full-time architect, so time together is more valuable than ever! I didn’t mind putting off my run was so happy to put off my run, lest my training continue to disappoint.

Week 10: 39 miles

This looks like a huge jump in mileage based on measuring the week from Monday-Sunday, but a Tuesday-Monday week would have resulted in 32 miles for week 9 and 27 miles for week 10.

• Monday, 9/21: 12 miles @ 9:47/mile
  • FINALLY! A long run that felt good. I benefited some from cooler temperatures and a flatter route along the Charles River in Boston, but it was still good! I celebrated with a lobster roll, fries, and a Milly’s Oatmeal Stout.
    

    Sunset overlooking Cambridge on the Charles River

• Tuesday, 9/22: Rest
• Wednesday, 9/23: 4 miles
• Thursday, 9/24: 6.5 miles; strides; Red Sox game
  

  First visit to Fenway!

• Friday, 9/25: Rest and the best damn lobster roll (I’ve talked about this place before, but it never disappoints)
• Saturday, 9/26: 12.5 miles @11:03/mile
  • I ran with my friend Amy, who was running 16 miles with some marathon pace miles thrown in. Even though it was raining, we had a really nice time and a good run.
• Sunday, 9/27: 4 mile recovery run

After several poor attempts at tempo runs, I just skipped my planned tempo this week. For several weeks, I’d felt a sense of dread of the tempo. The dread grew stronger each week, and I finally decided I’d had enough. I put it behind me and I actually feel better about my training without my weekly dose of dread and disappointment.

This post is feeling a bit negative, so here’s a photo of my cat for grins.

I’m not going to belabor all the things I’ve done wrong or failed to do over the past few weeks – I know I need to do core and hip work more consistently, get some time in lifting heavy things while on the road, and eat better while I’m traveling.

Have you ever had a really crappy training cycle? Any advice you have for pulling out of this rut would be greatly appreciated!