Carmel Marathon Training {Week 6}

Training got just a little bit harder this past week. One of my weekday runs got bumped up to 6 miles (rather than 5), and the long run was 13 miles with a strong finish.

However, the plan was kind – or as kind as it's going to get – giving me a break from tempos and intervals and my quality miles were at race pace. The RP miles should be fairly comfortable but as I'm still waffling as to what my goal time at the Carmel half will be, I erred on the faster side, averaging 8:30 pace for 4 miles – a pretty decent cry from the 9:00-9:09 I've declared.

The most challenging part, though, might have been running my long run the day after that race pace effort. My run buddies and I started early for a Sunday (7 a.m.) and my legs were just tired. We kept it easy for the most part but the push in the last mile was all grit. I was so thankful that I had people with me to help me push.

Highlight: Going for my first runch in a long, long time. It felt so, so good to get out of the office for a bit and stretch my legs. I also saw a ton of geese on one of the half-frozen rivers. It was gorgeous. I still feel guilty taking beaks since I'm pumping twice a day but I'm hoping as I wean Si at a year that I can do one of these a week.

Lowlight: Heavy legs on a couple of my runs. I really need to heed my own advice and actually foam roll regularly.

Overall: I'm feeling good, even with hitting 30 miles this week. I still need to work on my confidence in terms of believing I can hit certain paces for certain workouts.

The week, in running

Monday: 5 miles
Wednesday: 5 miles, negative split
Thursday: 3 miles
Saturday: 6 miles, 4 at GP
Sunday: 13 miles with strong finish