Chicago Marathon Training - Week 8

2 Months have come and gone. This cycle (and summer) are moving too damn fast for my liking! 

Looking back on the week I am pretty happy which how it went down. After the past two weeks of 14 then 18 mile long runs I had a lovely cutback week on tap which I was happy about all week long.

I pushed the pace on a couple of mid distance runs which was good. I haven't been doing much speed work in terms on intervals per say so adding tempo runs is hopefully beneficial. 

One thing I will say is that I am exhausted. Work has been busy. My social life has been busy and then training. I was working 6-7 days a week and longer hours last year and a tougher training schedule by average 10-15 miles per week and I honestly have no idea how I did it. I am very happy my decision this year to not have a coach. I want to PR but I mostly want to gain back some speed. I like not feeling the pressure (although clearly I put most on myself). But being type A if I am given a schedule I will disregard my body's cues on tiredness and aches and do the workout regardless. I am happy with the mileage that I am hitting and while I have no idea how the marathon(s) will shake out I feel like I am on the right path. 

Monday - Cross Train day - 30 minutes on the ARC + 60 mins on the AMT  

Tuesday - 2.3 miles @ 8:41 + weights in the morning + 6 miles @ 10:09 in the evening 

Wednesday - 2 miles @ 8:48 + weights in the morning + 6 miles @ 8:47 in the evening - this evening run was a progression and oof I was nauseous like none other after and could barely eat for the next day. But I pushed the pace which I need to start doing on some of these mid distance runs. 

Thursday - DAY OF REST - planned on yoga but sometimes date night is just the way to go ;)

Friday -  3 miles @ 10:39 - I was exhausted beyond belief but wanted to shake out the legs super slow and easy.

Saturday - 6.7  miles @ 8:57 - I pressed off instead of snooze and it was raining so swapped my long run to Sunday (shocked? not at all) I decided to do a speedier run to tire out the legs. Mission accomplished.

Sunday - 12.15 miles @ 10:12 - didn't go quite as slow as the previous weeks since it was a shorter long run but still kept it really easy and towards the end was definitely feeling tired. I waited until mid day to do this - and by noon all I ate was a Clif bar and didn't fuel during the run so that MAY have had something to do with feeling sluggish by the end. Plus my hips have been really achy not sure what that is about (oh right maybe I should stretch, like ever). I did however use O2Gold for this run which I think helped AND I didn't have to stop AT ALL! Happy dance for stomach improvements. It did get iffy somewhere around mile 10 but I just slowed myself down for a little bit and let it settle itself.

Total miles: 38

Goal for this week = yoga + stretching. And some more core/strength work. I slacked last and need to not let that fall off completely.