Finishing up strong

So this week started out a bit of a mess. I was tired, sore, slow and my heart rate was high. Ha, the good news I guess is that at least I checked in here a bit more. :)

I missed one of my three key workouts on Friday. Thankfully, however, the week ended much stronger than it started. And I was only off schedule by 18 minutes. Not too shabby.

Schedule:

M: rest

T: 1:10 (8:45-9:00 pace)

W: 1:20 (20 min w/u; 6x.5 @ 7:17; .25 rec; 20 min c/d) + 4 striders

R: 1:10 (8:45-9:00 pace)

F: 1:25 (10 min w/u; 8 at MP; 10 c/d) + 4 striders

Sa: 50 (8:45-9:00)

Su: 2:00 (8:45-9:00)

Total: 7:55

Actual:

M: rest/arms & abs

T: 1:03 (8:57) - cut it short due to time and the fact I was feeling sore and crappy.

W: 1:20 - 9.5 miles (20 min w/u 8:50; intervals: 7:14, 7:10, 7:15, 7:12, 7:13, 7: 136; 25 min c/d - 8:56) + 4 striders. HR was high and effort was harder than it should have been for these.

R: 1:12 - 8 (9:00) - I was freezing with the winds and HR was a bit elevated (but not too bad) /arms & abs.

F: rest day. planned to run after boys got on the bus, but got inundated with work. We took my mom out to dinner for her birthday, so no time after work.

Sa: 2:30 - 17 miles (8:48) on treadmill. This was easier than I expected it to be. I hooked up the iPad to the treadmill and the time really flew by. I opted for the TM because it was brutally cold outside (-10 with windchill) and I woke up with SUPER sore legs. Thought the softer surface and flexibility of being home would be good. Fortunately, all went well.

Su: 1:30 - 10.43 (8:43). This run felt awesome. HR was in a good place and my legs felt great. Surprisingly, I woke up to almost 0 soreness despite my ongoing soreness all week and 17 miler. I had been sitting in an uncomfortable, hot gym all day for a wrestling tournament and started my run feeling crappy with a huge headache. The 30 degrees and fresh air was just the ticket!!

Total: 7:37 - 52.2 miles

So I was only off by 18 minutes - about 2 miles. Not too shabby given how rocky the first 5 days of the week felt.

Only glitch - I got home tonight after my run to enter my time into the schedule with the coach and saw he wrote a note to take it easy and cut back today since I upped it yesterday. Ooops. Sorry coach. :)

I am wondering if I had a bug or something earlier in the week that made me feel so draggy. Lots of people keep talking about feeling icky and low grade fever. My stomach was a bit icky and I was dog tired, but okay. Just off. Who knows.

****

In other news, my boys rock! James really did great at his tournament today - best he has wrestled yet. This is his first season, and you can see the improvement week after week. Very cool. We saw a lot of HORRIBLE sportsmanship this weekend (by kids AND parents) and it was nice to be able to show our kids what NOT to do. When James lost his last match, which he wanted so badly to win his bracket, he had pure composure, class and sportsmanship. Not that he didn't before, but I could tell it really sunk into him that how you react really matters. So proud of that kid.

Jake had his last regular season basketball game and unfortunately I missed it. It started at 2:30, but the stinking wrestling tournament took FOREVER. So we had to divide and conquer. BUT, I hear he played awesome and his team won, leaving them undefeated for the season. Why is this cool (aside from the obvious)? He was on the one third grade team that had "played up" in the fourth grade league. So proud of that kid.

Johnny? He had a band gig last night until 3:30 am. I took James last night for weigh in so we didn't have to go super early this am, but we were up at 7:20. Yup, and he made it through the day and even made us Greek Soup for supper. What a keeper. So in love with that man. :)