Training for 7/31/17

This weekend did not go according to plan!

Friday, the storms arrived as forecasted, but they brought a TON more rain than I was expecting. It absolutely poured, and for a very long time. To put it in perspective: The last hurricane that passed through here had zero effect on the satellite signal. Friday’s rain wiped it out for two straight hours.

It rained so hard, for so long, that a lot of water collected on roads, including on a good chunk of the course we were set to run Saturday morning in Millsboro. A little after 10 p.m., the race director sent out an email regretfully informing us the race had to be postponed due to safety concerns. It looks like I’ll be racing a 5K in August after all, as the race has been rescheduled for Aug. 13, pending town approval.

Saturday, I slept in. Late in the morning, I decided to go out and do the interval workout I’d skipped last week because I was expecting to race a 5K. I programmed the Garmin to measure out four half-mile repeats, with a quarter-mile of rest between each, plus a warm up and cool down.

It wasn’t raining anymore, but it looked like it might start again at any moment, so the humidity was still up there. It was also pretty windy. At least it had cooled off a bit though.

I ran the warm up mile into the wind. Conveniently, the route I was running turned just before the end of that mile and the beginning of the intervals, so I never had to deal with the wind when I was trying to run fast.

The first half-mile repeat didn’t feel too bad. The next three got progressively tougher though. The Garmin doesn’t show my pace while I’m running the intervals, so I just crossed my fingers that I was at least maintaining the same pace on each repeat.

After the final interval, I ran another 1.5 miles to cool down, finishing off the 5.5-mile loop. The best part was when I came up on the only standing water on the whole loop, right at the end of the run. I splashed through the gigantic puddle since I didn’t have to run any farther and risk getting blisters. That was fun!

When I was done with the whole workout, I could finally check my paces during the intervals. I was hoping to be around 3:30 (7:00/mile pace) on each one. The first was 3:26. Good! The second one dropped to 3:31. Uh oh. The third one sped up to 3:17 — really? And the last one was 3:15 — 6:30/mile pace! I felt better about feeling so much like I wanted to die during the last one haha. At least I was actually running pretty fast for me!

That evening, Clark and I went to his coworker’s house for a party. The weather cleared up for good and it turned out to be a nice evening for it. We had a good time and stayed pretty late. It was almost midnight when we got home and went to bed.

Sunday, I slept in again. After we got up, Clark decided he wanted to go to the beach, as soon as possible. I offered to wait until we got to the beach house to go for my run, but he told me to just go ahead and do it before we left. So, in the interest of time, I didn’t do the long run I’d originally planned, and instead did a lap around the 4.5-mile loop.

It was an absolutely perfect morning for a run. Clear blue skies, not too much wind, temperatures below 70 and, best of all, decent humidity! I’d almost forgotten what that felt like. It turned out to be a very pleasant run.

When I got home, we drove to Fenwick. Clark’s parents were there, and Clark also invited another of his coworkers, and his family. The weather was perfect there too, and we had a great afternoon of kayaking, paddleboarding, riding the beach cruiser and just sitting around drinking beer.

In the evening, after Clark’s coworker and his family went home, we went to Off the Hook in Bethany for dinner. We also picked up my cousin Corey, who was at the condo in Ocean City my family is renting for the next couple of weeks. He came back to the beach house with us and we stayed up late drinking and playing cards. Clark and I wound up staying at the house last night, getting up early this morning and driving home.

And that is why I haven’t run yet today, and I’m not sure if I’m going to, though I’d like to get in at least a few easy miles. It’s the last day of the month, so I want to post my July summary, but I can’t do that until I know how many miles I actually ran. I will probably come back to update this later, after I’ve either run something or given up pretending I’m going to run.

Update, 5:30 p.m.: I did go out and run the easy 3-miler on today’s schedule. It was hot and slow and didn’t feel great but I did it and now I can post July’s summary.

Mileage:

• Week 1 (July 1-8): 31.7 miles
• Week 2 (July 9-15): 30.6
• Week 3 (July 16-22): 29.1
• Week 4 (July 23-29): 23.6
• Week 5 (July 30-31): 7.5

Total: 122.5 miles

Richmond Marathon training officially began July 10. I didn’t quite run all the miles in the first three weeks of the training plan. So far I’ve done one long run and skipped two, and done one speed workout and skipped two (though I ran a 5K both weeks I skipped the speed workout.) Looks like I’m falling into my old patterns!

As far as racing went, I did run three 5Ks, but it was July, so they were nothing impressive.

My poor bike was even more neglected; I only rode it three times for a total of 69.2 miles.

Well, tomorrow is a new month and a good time to get this training cycle all the way back on the rails. I only have two races planned: An inaugural 7K (4.35-mile) trail race in Salisbury this coming Friday evening, put on by the same guy who did the Algonquin 50K I ran in Pocomoke City in February; and that summer series 5K that got washed out this past weekend and rescheduled.

I should also start putting more miles on my bike again if we’re really going to do a century in October.