Three weeks in and I’m already exhausted! It could be that we’re back to a regular work schedule after the holidays, the additional miles, or that I’m only sleeping an average of about 4.5 hours a night. Regardless, I really struggled with staying awake and motivated this week.

Monday: 0

Tuesday: 5.8 miles, 2 mile w/u, 4×800 (4:32, 4:32, 4:28, 4:26) w/ 400 recovery, 1 mile c/d + Abs & Arms

Wednesday: 0

Thursday: 5 Miles, 1 mile w/u, 4×1200 hills w/ 400 recovery, 1 m c/d

Friday: 0

Saturday: 13 Miles

Sunday: 6.2 Miles + Abs

Total: 30 Miles

I headed to the rec center on Tuesday with caution, I was expecting the parking lot to be full and every machine in use. Luckily, it was fairly empty. We started with the warm up on the track and moved to the treadmills. I tried to keep my pace as close as I could to 4:30, so I bounced between 6.7 and 6.8 on speed. I felt fine, but felt slow. We finished with a mile cool down, some ab work and some arm work.

I had to skip Wednesday’s workout because a very busy evening. I ended up getting home at 10pm, and by that point it was dinner and bedtime.

On Thursday I had my first hill repeat workout of the training cycle. I prefer to run my hill repeats outside, but in winter I’m limited to the treadmill after work. I wasn’t sure what incline to use, so I started at 4% and increased my speed on every repeat. Each one felt harder and my hips were getting sore, but I could feel the benefit of the workout, especially walking upstairs afterward!

Saturday’s long run ended up being a tough one. I met up with Jennifer, Kate and Mallory at Buckeye Woods and we set out with the intention of running between 6-8 miles. We ran the inlet to the back roads, to the rail trail. I felt ok in the beginning, but started to get hot and tired a few miles in. I took off my jacket around mile 3 and felt a little better. But by mile 4, I was feeling rough. I fueled with Honey Stingers and stripped down to my tank top. Finally, I felt better and we made our way to a connecting housing development, in search of the house with the cat statue. Gotta make runs fun, right? From here, we were back on the rail trail, and headed back to BW. By this point, I was debating if I should just do my long run since we were expected to have bad weather on Sunday.

So we dropped off Kate and headed around the marsh loop. Within these few miles, my knee was starting to become quite sore. Instead of pushing it to the scheduled 14, we stopped at 11. But after a quick drive home, I felt guilty for not hitting my mileage, so I set out for the final three miles in my neighborhood. The knee pain was gone, and I figured the rest of the run would be no problem. Except for when I started to feel weak and delusional 1.5 miles in. So I headed home and called it quits at 13 for the day. Considering I hadn’t fueled since mile 4, I knew why I couldn’t finish up so I only have myself to blame for this one.

Somehow, I think Sunday ended up as my best run of the week. I was glad I did my long run the day before because the weather started to get nasty when I finally started my run. I set out for 6 miles on the treadmill, and got through 3 episodes of 30 Rock. I fueled with Honey Stingers and Gu at mile 2, mostly because it was lunch time and I was starving, I did not want a repeat of the day before. And I had a small break at mile 4 to open the window for colder air. I felt great and ended up increasing the speed maybe every 10-15 minutes.

After my run, I tallied up my mileage for the week and realized I was at 29.8, so naturally I had to get back on the treadmill for .2 miles to make it an even 30.

Overall, this was another good week. I got four workouts in and hit over 30 miles for the second week in a row. I’m not even sure I did that with Wineglass! I think this week was a little harder than last because of the higher mileage. It will take my body some getting used to, but hopefully it will pay off in the end.