As I wrote the other day, my last week of training sucked. Blame the heat, blame being overambitious my first week and probably getting too many workouts in with a few yoga classes + SoulCycle on top of all of my scheduled runs, blame PMS, blame some stuff I’m working through in my head.

It just didn’t seem to be in the cards for me to have a good week last week. A few weeks ago, when some friends were complaining about training in the heat, I was the chipper one who said “But it makes you feel like you’re flying come the fall!”

True…but it still sucks in the summer, and struggling to run at a slower pace can feel pretty damn disheartening, especially when you have a Big Hairy Audacious Goal you’re shooting for.

I tried so hard to accept it, because if there’s one thing I’ve learned recently, it’s that pushing and pushing and pushing to change something that is somewhat out of your control doesn’t usually work.

So, I accepted the other day that last week sucked and this week might too. (Current humidity: 93%.)

Honestly, so far both of my runs this week have been on the treadmill because I just haven’t had it in me mentally to head back out into the humidity. I had an okay 4-miler the other day…

And a kick-ass 7-miler tempo on the treadmill tonight.

As I stepped onto the treadmill, I looked at my schedule on my phone and contemplated switching things around to do a shorter run. But I’m headed out to the Hamptons tomorrow morning, and I knew how much better I’d feel if I stuck to my schedule and got this week’s speedwork behind me.

1.5 mile warmup, 4 miles tempo (7.2, 7.2, 7.3, 7.5) and 1.5 mile cooldown. Jess told me to do “what felt like half-marathon pace” for the tempo miles, so I started at 7.2 (8:20 pace) for the first two, and when I felt better, picked up a bit.

And now I can go enjoy the 4th without the guilt of changing around my workouts and happy that I got a good run in. I also got a

Current State:

What are you doing for the 4th? What workout do you always put off? (Or want to.)

Happy Monday!

Most of you probably either already know Google Reader’s last day is today or have no idea what I’m talking about, but for those of you who didn’t know Google Reader’s swan song was tonight.

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Last week’s running sort of sucked, but I’m going to recap it so in a few weeks, I can hopefully look back and see how much better things have gotten…
…right?
Monday: glorious rest day
Tuesday: 35 minutes at “easy pace” + 5 20-second strides with 20-second recovery jogs in between. Tuesday’s run would have been okay if I hadn’t been looking at my watch. My typical “easy” pace for a short run like this around 9:15-9:45, but I had a hard time ever getting below 10:00 miles, which hasn’t happened for a long time. I finished up the 35 minutes and headed to the High Line for the strides and felt like I was on an obstacle course. I know that sounds awful to most New Yorkers, but it was actually kind of fun dodging people since it was still early and not super-crowded yet.
Wednesday: The day got away from me – which is totally an excuse – and I didn’t get my run in. I figured that I could just do the rest of the week’s runs on consecutive days…
Thursday: Mile repeats of death. Weirdly, for as much as I bitched about the mile repeats and how hard they were, this felt like my best workout of the week. I have no doubt that this is because this was the day I ran the fastest. I need to not always tie a “good workout” to “pace I’m happy with.” Goal for next week?
Friday: Jess and I had shifted my workouts for a bit, and I was supposed to an easy 4-miler on Thursday and the mile repeats on Wednesday, but we moved them. I went out to do my 4-miler, and got about half a mile before turning around. My legs were absolutely shot, and I couldn’t imagine shuffling around on them for another half hour, and then, running 12 miles the next day and 45 minutes the next day.
Saturday: I hoped and prayed that that extra rest on Friday was all I needed…

I had a fun 12-mile run with friends on Saturday, so I guess the rest helped. It’s such a fine line to tell when you’re completely wussing out and when you actually need it, but it seems that my legs and lungs are having a hard time starting up this training cycle in the humidity.
PLEASE COOPERATE, BODY!

Sunday: Had another slow-for-me run, but tried to ignore that and just get the miles in and not freak out about pace and chill out listening to a Jillian Michaels podcast and found this nice, quiet little patch along the West Side Highway.

It made me very excited for the real beach I’ll be going to this weekend with friends.
So, the week sucked but I did what I could and am acknowledging that I’m having a harder time than usual adjusting to training in the heat. I’m trying not to freak out for what this means for the rest of my training cycle.
How was your week of training? What are you doing for the 4th? What is your Google Reader substitute of choice (or do you not use Google Reader?)