MCM Week 7 Training Recap

My allergies are still KILLING me, but today kind of rocked anyway.

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First of all, the lovely ladies at Well + Good NYC included me in a round-up of fall fitness fashion picks.

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Image courtesy of Logitech

Then I found out that I won a Logitech sweepstakes I’d entered at BlogHer. I won a keyboard, mouse and $500 Visa gift card!! Since I use a laptop at home, I’m just going to have to pimp my desk at work.

But if it’s Sunday, it’s Meet the Press Monday, it’s time for me to recap the previous week of marathon training.

How is it Week 7 already?

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I’m pretty happy with my training for last week. I only got in 4 out of 5 runs, but I had a terrible blister under my toe that made it nearly impossible to walk Friday night and Saturday morning, much less run, so I bagged that run. Those other 4 runs were pretty solid, though.

Monday: beautiful, glorious, sweet rest day

Tuesday: six miles at night

Wednesday: seven miles of hills in the morning. It figures I’m finally getting a little better about hill training now that my plan will start switching to speed work next week. I asked the lovely Meghan (who is an editor at Runner’s World) why the plan started that way. She said that the hills helped build strength without too much impact while you were still building up your mileage. Either way, I’m really excited to switch to speedwork next week. It’s just logistically easier than trying to figure out a route that includes hills.

Thursday: yay rest day

Friday: 16 miles before work. Still can’t believe I did that. I just uploaded my data from my Garmin, and I rocked an average pace of 9:38. Not the 9:09 I’ll need to break 4, but then, you’re not supposed to race your long runs anyway.

Saturday: Massive Blister From Hell/Cramps from Hell/Allergies from Hell.

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Sunday: Beach run on the boardwalk in Margate with my friend Shannon. Still had terrible cramps, was congested and we left late, but 5 miles is 5 miles. And running somewhere new is always fun.

Bagging Saturday’s run means that I ended up 5 miles short of my plan’s 39 miles for last week. I’m bummed about that, but there’s no way I could have run on that aggressive blister, so it has to be okay. I’m just glad that I got a good long run in. This week’s goal: stick to plan. That’s all.

How’s your training going, and what circumstances do you feel necessitate skipping a run?

16 Miles Before Work + Weekend in Margate

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I cheated this weekend. Ladies and gentlemen, meet Kira. She is an English Pointer, and she is gorgeous. Don’t tell Bailey.

I got out of the city for one more beach weekend in Margate with my friends. This is my second time there; we went last summer, too.

I knew that the last thing I”d want to do this weekend was run 16 miles when I could either be sleeping in or laying on the beach, so I ran 16 miles on Friday morning before work.

Ashley’s done that a few times before, and I always thought she was crazy, but when I thought about my options, the choice was easy. I woke up at 4:45, left around 5:20 and met up with Fiona at Chelsea Piers. We ran about 12 miles together–up nearly to the George Washington Bridge and back. It wasn’t easy waking up before 5, but by the time I was 5 or 6 miles in, I finally woke up. We haven’t run much together, so it was nice to chat and get to know each other for more than two hours.

We split up when I had about 3 miles left, and I had nothing left. We’d run around 8:45-9:00 pace for the first half of the run, and my legs were just shot by then. When I got home, I wanted to eat a bagel and sit on the couch, but I had to get dressed for work. I worked until 4 (yay summer Fridays) and my friends and I peaced out to drive down to Margate.

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I had a huge blister on my foot and woke up with awful allergies, so I canned yesterday’s run, and I don’t regret it even a little bit.

This morning, Shannon and i ran 5 miles up and down the Atlantic City boardwalk. I was still really congested, it was hot and I was ready to pull out my ovaries, so it was a sucky run. Oh, and we ran into the wind. And uphill both ways in the snow.

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Afterwards, we went to the beach. Yesterday, it was rainy, so we just walked around Cape May. (Where apparently Anne was and we missed each other!) It was fun, but it was not as fun as sitting on the beach is. Sitting on the beach is my Xanax.

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Before getting in the car to head back to the city, we went to Lamberti’s for dinner and sat out overlooking the water. While I’m sort of over the really hot running and high electricity bills, I’m really not ready for summer to end.

Team Summer or Team Fall? How are you spending the last few days of summer?