end of the week and plan for week 4!

Good morning and happy Monday friends!  I will  put up a birthday post later, but I had a great weekend!  So much fun and so thankful for all the well-wishes I received and the nice gifts.  Year 27 is off to a good start :)  But before I get to that, let me recap the end of the week in workouts, and lay down the plan for week #4.

I cant believe I'm starting my 4th week of training/base building for Fargo.  The weeks seem to be flying by, and I know the race will be here before I know it.  As cheesy as it sounds, I'm already starting to picture myself racing,coming into the Fargo Dome to finish (fast, mind you), with a giant smile on my face :)  Lets just hope this positivity hangs on until then!

Thursday - REST DAY!

Nothing super exciting to note here...I cleaned my house


Friday - 8x60 sec. hills inside a 7 mile run
              overall avg. pace 8:28

I was feeling SO unmotivated for this workout.  I even had Jake ask some of his Ragnar Relay buddies if they wanted to join me....unfortunately nobody was able to, so I was flying solo.  I had a hill in mind that I've done repeats at before, but the last time I did them was last summer, and it didn't go well.  Its about a 1/2 mile from my house, so I ran there and down the hill and did a little warm up.  Then I started the repeats.I really tried to focus on my form and pushing off as I ran up.  I feel like it takes so much energy to really pay attention to my form.  I notice as I get tired I don't run on my toes and tend to stomp down with my whole foot - which I'm sure is whats causing my knee to bug me - that pounding cant be a good thing, plus I'm not as light as I would like to be for Fargo, so the extra weight doesn't help either  As soon as I noticed this and ran on my toes, my knee felt better.  I just HAVE to practice this, on each hill I go up.  My repeats were good, so much better than last summer.  By the last one my legs were toasted though.  I ran the 1/2 mile home for a cool down.

Saturday - 10 mile easy
                  avg. pace 8:47

This was a nice, fun, casual run with the YMCA morning group.  I love running with these folks.  There is never any pressure to run fast.  Everyone goes at their own pace, and just enjoys the run.  Plus the sunrise was super pretty!  My legs could definitely feel the hills from yesterday, but my breathing stayed pretty easy.  One thing I'm learning is that just because my legs feel "tired" doesn't mean I need to stop or take a break.  If the rest of me is fine, my legs can keep going - its all mental.

Sunday - 6.5 easy
               avg. pace 8:46

Happy Birthday to me!  Soooo....this run wasn't exactly the super-wonderful-awesome-speedy birthday run that I was hoping for.  Probably didn't help that the route I picked had a lovely 2 mile hill at the very beginning, whoops!  I felt slow, out of breath, and clunky.  I was breathing way to hard for the pace we were going.  Plus, by about mile 4 my left knee started to act up again.  I felt it a little on Friday, but nothing to bad.  I felt it a little more today.  No sharp pain or anything like I had in the fall, but I could feel it starting to hurt in the same place.  Again, when I would run more on my toes (up an incline or something), it would go away, hmmm, I NEED to figure this out asap.

Now here's whats on tap for this week.

Monday - 8.5 miles total. 1.5mile WU&CD
                5x800m I pace (3:30-3:39) with 2:30 jog recovery, 4x400m R pace (1:35-1:40)
*due to my paces from my previous workouts, Nichole bumped up my paces for this week quite a bit.  I just hope I can hang on!
Tuesday - Cross Training, 45 min.
Wednesday - 4 miles easy ( 9 min. mile)
Thursday - 6 miles total. 1 mile WU&CD
                 sets of ( 2 min. hard, 1 min easy, 1 min hard, 30 sec. easy, 30 sec. easy)
Friday - REST
Saturday - 7 miles easy
Sunday - 5 miles easy

This is obviously a down week so my total mileage is only 30, I'm also going to get some good strength training in this week.  I'm going to shoot for 3 days of that.    I'm also looking to redeeming myself on Thursday since last time that workout didn't go so well. I am going to get it done outside and hopefully that will help.  Also, the temp is pretty good today, but I think there is a chance for things to get icy this afternoon, I'm hoping the weatherman is wrong so I can get my track workout done!

Also, I'm hoping the handful of Swedish fish I just shoveled into my mouth when I was home for lunch doesn't come back to haunt me today....