Carmel Week 6: A Change in Mindset

A Change in Mindset

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Roop LOVES playing with Parker at Ms. Jane's.

Let's see if I can adequately articulate what has been in my head this week...

I've heard people say, "Think of your race as the reward for all of the hard work you've put in." I wanted to take that a step further and relate it to each week of training. Instead of getting nervous about my speed workouts, I want to look at them as my opportunity each week to get the crazy out and allow my mind and body to stay focused on the task. They are my reward for be disciplined with my easy runs!

I spent some one on one Starbucks time with my boy.

Update on my back: I think I mentioned that I hurt my upper back last week after trying to increase my resistance and doing too much work/lifting around the house. It was bothering me just a bit the first half of the week, so I avoided yoga and lifting arms just to be safe. I attempted a yoga workout on my cross training day and had no issues!

• 1/1: 6.2 miles, 8:54/mile. Hill surge Monday (10x10 seconds). More craptastic weather prompted me to hit up the gym for my workout. I wasn't really sure which incline to set the treadmill to for my hill surges, so I had to do a little testing on the first two. I ended up deciding on 6.0 incline with my pace ranging 7:14 to 6:59.
  

  

  A little New Year's cupcake baking.

• 1/2: 8.04 miles, 7:58/mile. Speed workout: 10 minute warm up, [8 minutes challenging/3 minutes steady] x4, 10 minute cool down. Again, due to weather, I did this on the treadmill. It was a tough one by the end!! My paces were as follows: WU- 9:13/mi, steady- 8:13/mi, CD- 9:05/mi, challenging interval paces- 7:24, 7:21, 7:19, 7:19. I had this same workout a few weeks ago and I was able to run it a tad faster this time! Per usual, I was ok for the first 2 1/2 intervals, but it started feeling tough after that. EEK.
  

  

  So tired.

• 1/3: 8.85 miles, 9:03/mile. Today was a simple 60-80 minutes of easy running. The past couple of weeks, I've been running closer to the 60 minute mark because I was either pooped or cold AF. This week, I had the opportunity to run in the sun. It was cold, but at least the sun made an appearance occasionally. I explored a couple of streets in Hilliard for potential future homes. No such luck on anything today.
  

  

  A bit nippy.

• 1/4: Yoga, 45 minutes. Today was cross training day, and I was dying to use my new yoga mat. I found a YouTube video and was brave enough to do it in front of strangers at the gym. I can't wait to wake up to sore muscles in the morning!
  

  

  
  

• 1/5: 6.12 miles, 8:59/mile. I took my legs to the treadmill for the THIRD time this week. Even though it's not the most optimal situation, I haven't hated it yet. Today's run was easy with 5x30 second strides in the last 10 minutes. To switch things up a bit, I took Amanda up on her offer to run at Lifetime Fitness. I'm looking forward to gaining 20 degrees on Sunday so that I can avoid doing my long run on the mill.
  

  

  
  

• 1/6: 3.27 miles, 19:09/mile. So f'n cold...so, so cold. I met Meg at Schneider's all bundled up for a 1 degree (not considering wind chill/real feel temp) walk. We were frozen to our bones, but we got donuts to help us with the mental part of that.
  

  

  Frozen toes and fingers...at least our faces felt good! [ME, Meg]

• 1/7: 16.25 miles, 8:46/mile. What a roller coaster long run planning has been the past couple of weeks! I opted to wait until Sunday after church because it was supposed to be in the low 30s. Heat wave!!! It ended up being low 20s and windy, but still better than single digits...especially since I was supposed to attempt some faster miles at the end. I met up with Amanda for my first 6 miles. We nixed my original route due to lots of snow. Amanda's not a fan of it (I will admit that it does irritate my piriformis a bit). We avoided the snow, for the most part, in this 6 mile section before meeting Brittaney and Elizabeth for the last 10 miles. Again, I had to alter the planned route due to the road/trail conditions. As we headed into New Albany, there were many sections that it was impossible to avoid the snow. The only time it truly sucked was when we got to the faster miles. You can only go so fast when running in snow! I was able to knock out a couple of miles in 8:33 and 8:32 despite the conditions, and finally a road mile of 8:03 to end the run. I'm confident that my other faster miles would have been in that area had they been on the clear road as well. Regardless, we had a great run and end to another week of training!
  

  

  [ME, Elizabeth, Brittaney]

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Well, 6 of 18 weeks are complete for The Carmel Marathon. If the current long run pattern continues, I'm guessing I'll be running 18 miles this week! EEK! Hopefully the weather will be a bit nicer (I'm not counting on it). 

A friend posted a link that compares your times to other runners. These were my results for my age group overall (using my PRs). I didn't realize until later that it had the female only option as well.