Twin Cities Marathon Training, Week #5 recap

This was another good week, with some new stuff mixed in.

In our track workout on Thursday we did a mile and a half of “Indian Run”, where you all run in a line, with the front person setting the pace and the back person surging to get to the front of the line. Repeat. Good way to get a decent paced run done and have fun at the same time. We ended up about a 7:05 pace. When I told my 13 year old daughter that we did this run, she said that their cross country team does this all the time. Then she said, “Cute. Your little running group is just like my cross country team. So who do you have a crush on? Everyone on our team has a crush on someone.” I had to remind her that I’m almost 40. And married!

The other new thing this week was the long run on Saturday. It was the “Damn Hill Workout”. 15 miles total, with 5.5 miles to the hill, then 4 miles of hill drills, then 5.5 miles back to the club. The hill is a good hill for workouts. 1/4 mile up at a decent grade. We did 8 hills/drills (and jogging back down). Crazy stuff like high knees, cherry pickers, backwards running, different paces, sling-shot (like the Indian Run), etc. At the top of the hill we had to go to “Survivor Island” and do different core things – push ups, crunches, planks, etc. I thought it was a good workout – pushing me to do things I wouldn’t do on my own. BUT, it was a ton of waiting around. There were 100+ people doing it and they were all different paces, so when we got to the hill we had to wait around for 15 – 20 minutes. Definitely pushed the pace on the 5.5 miles on the way back though (with the last 2 miles at 8:00 and 8:10 and it was ultra hot and humid) in keeping with my No Holding Back mantra.

Summary for Week #5:

Run: 52 miles;
Weights: 2 times;
Biking: 60 minutes;
Pilates: 1 time*

The details:

M: Bike 45 minutes; weights
T: 7.8 miles (8:35) hilly route w/ 6 x 45 second strides
W: 7.5 miles (8:44); weights
Th: 8.55 miles w/ speedy stuff mixed in
F: 7.1 miles (8:58)
Sa: 15 miles w/ 8 x. 25 hill drills in the middle (8:28 for the running miles; couldn’t track hills accurately)
Su: 6 miles (8:24); pilates*

*technically, I haven’t done pilates yet. But, I slacked on pilates this week big time, so I figure if I put on here that I did it, then the guilt of being accountable to ~~the internet world~~ my 5 blog readers will make me do it tonight!