boston training: week 9

another tuesday, another blog. best day of the week! obviously. and its gorgeous out, so ive got the window and sliding door open (and am bundled up in oversized sweatpants and a hoodie, of course). ive gotten all the pics uploaded to this blog and now just need to figure out some words to put along with it. im semi excited to only have 5 more of these to write. well, 6 i guess... if anyone wants to know how the race goes, i suppose i should write about that too. ok so 6 more blogs. i think i can do that...

but that still leaves a lot of running left to do. oof. this week was certainly not the best, but it had its shining moments. week 9 started with an easy treadmill run, as well as a 4am speed workout- brought to you by the unicorn running team (thanks, meg!). nothing says 4am fun like a purple unicorn! or something.

the run actually didnt go exactly as planned... 4x2400m strength run turned into just 3 repeats, but the way they were headed, the 4th repeat would have a) sucked, b) really sucked, and c) not likely worth any sort of gain. so i just didnt do it. and i lived, surprisingly. i have to say, i havent used this plan numerous times (just once), but i know how it works and why. at this point, im fairly well locked into what (i hope) might be my marathon pace in 6 weeks. but i also know theres still work to do to nail it down. theres likely some metaphor to be said here but im not coming up with something and am too lazy to do a google search. so anyway... ill do the work (or as much as i can), suck it up. get shit done. all that jazz. but when things dont come, i wont dwell.

cool.

ok so shitty run out of the way (it really wasnt all that bad)... i had a rest day, which i took seriously (even using the elevator at work). saturday AND sunday i had friends to run with! saturday was super windy... a head wind the whole. damn. way! (rude) but was the awesome degree of 29 to start. seriously, im going to overheat if its hotter than 45. i swear. leslie was a great running partner who brought sweet jams (music, not jelly, yuck) and took pictures and cheered for me and gave me a nice marathon pace therapy session.

sunday was supposed to be a nice, slow, flat recovery day (also i could have slept in)... and instead i got up at stupid dawn to go to gorham (hills) and run in the freaking cold (obviously less than the ideal temp of 29 degrees). at least it wasnt windy. i did this all for michelle. and sarah (reluctantly) joined us. and we ran too fast. and i basically died and my legs wanted to fall off. oops. (this is not an ideal part of hansons marathon method).

michelle and i love selfies. sarah, not so much. 

but she does it cuz i tell her she has to

so... since i ran too fast and basically took everything i had out of my legs on a recovery day, i woke up at 3:30 monday am and swore at my alarm, shut it off, and said f it. not a mentality ive had really at all this training cycle, but its bound to happen at some point. im pretty sure it happened training for mdi, and im sure this might not be the only run i blatantly skip again. but i needed it. 

of course then my head got into it and i started worrying about miles and why did i skip that run, what a stupid thing to do. so my 10 mile long run today turned into 18 miles... which were pretty awesome and i didnt ever feel like i wanted to call an uber, so that automatically made it better than last weeks long run. and i had awesome style, of course, which is clearly important. the fleece headband was a bit aggressive as its like 50 degrees out (yay!). 

before long runs i make sure there places along the way incase i need to go to the bathroom. whatever, shit happens. today was the embassy suites hotel at the airport... and for some reason there was a fancy bench in the bathroom. im really unsure as to why there needs to be a fancy bench in a bathroom. i dont even have a fancy bench in my home (im not sure i have anything classified as fancy in general)... but really... what is that for?!

week 9

3x1.5mi strength- (goal: 11:30-11:45)- the workout was to do 4 of these, but just made it through 3 of them- 11:31, 11:36, 11:39... you see how the trend was going. zero benefits to suffer through another one

9 @MP- (goal pace 7:48-8:01) - 7:55, 7:58, 7:55, 7:52, 7:53, 7:57, 7:55, 7:58, 7:54- ran along the first 7 miles of the maine coast marathon course and back to the start. good hills and head wind. tough run but always happy to push these paces outside.

long run- (goal pace 8:20-8:42)- average pace 8:43. just missed it. oh well.

new tune i just heard this am... giving it a shot. havent added it to the playlist just yet... 

unfortunately the weather app i have on my phone has now reached april 18th in the extended forecast. god only knows why anything should allow you to see the weather forecast 6 weeks ahead of time (most weather reports are wrong 2 days ahead of time). any guesses on the number of times this changes?! also, 51 will be too hot.

ill do without the rain too, k thanks

and heres a random filler of cute hen pics since i have nothing else to really write about...

seriously, this face!

6. freaking. weeks. left!!!