Weekly Workouts: Kiawah Half/Charleston Marathon Training Week 13 (11/2-11/8)

Weekly Recap

11 Nov

Last week was a relatively uneventful week and one in which I missed speedwork. Again. Ugh. Not doing so great with that the past few weeks, partially because of my schedule and partially because of the humidity that continues to hang on despite the calendar saying it's November. But it's really time for me to get back on track (literally). Even though I missed speedwork, I still hit a milestone this week: highest ever weekly mileage at just over 34 miles!

Workout summary:

Monday: OFF
Tuesday: Easy run - 7.15 miles (8:57 pace)
Wednesday: Bodyflow (love this!)
Thursday: OFF
Friday: Easy run - 3.14 miles (8:50 pace)
Saturday: Easy run - 8.03 (9:09 pace)
Sunday: Long run (easy) - 16.01 miles (9:41 pace)

Total miles: Run - 34.33 miles / Total runs: 4 / Total core workouts: 1 / Total strength/conditioning workouts: 0 / Total crosstraining: 0

I got back to Bodyflow last week, but didn't make it to Journey for strength work. But Bodyflow was amazing! I was all out of whack when I first started - my balance was off and everything was just tight and miserable. But by the end of the class, I was much more stable and relaxed, and managed to get into a near full split on both sides and up into a full bridge/wheel pose without issues. And it kept the tightness out of my calves for the rest of the week. Good stuff.

The heat and humidity continued through Saturday, which sort of made me glad the Craft Brew Race was canceled, especially since it was supposed to be at noon and that would have been gross.

I'm so ready for fall weather! We had a little taste of it on Sunday and my long run ended up being pretty cold and windy, especially toward the end, which is another extreme, but I'll take it over the heat and humidity. Since we had more rain this week, the trails were also a complete mess on my long run, so I ended up running most of the time with wet, muddy feet.

I kept a pretty even (and slow) pace the entire run. I know a lot of people run their long runs closer to goal marathon pace, but since I'm just ramping my mileage back up, I'm trying to keep it somewhere between 60 and 90 seconds slower than goal pace right now. I probably could go even slower and be just fine, too. Right now for me, it's about building endurance on those long runs, not speed.

On a shoe note - I think I need to switch things up. Since I've never run the weekly mileage volume I'm currently running and my long runs are now over the half marathon distance, I'm feeling like my Brooks Pure Cadences just aren't working. I had to trade in my Flows a while ago (sad!). I'm still not sure if it was a faulty pair, or if I'm done with the Flows for good. But on these longer runs, I'm feeling like a need a little more cushioning. I'm thinking of trying out either Brooks Launch or Ghost, maybe both, and seeing how that goes. I've got several weeks to figure that out, but I'd like to get it done sooner rather than later so I have enough time to adjust.

I'm certain I made the right decision with switching to the Kiawah Half and giving myself five extra weeks to train for the Charleston Marathon. It's allowing cutbacks and a more gradual increase in mileage (and time to find better shoes), which for me at this point in my running journey, is key to not only staying injury free, but to not burning out with constantly increasing miles. Now if the fall weather would stick around, maybe I'd find my motivation to get out and do some speedwork again and really round out this training.

marathon traininghalf marathon trainingkiawah half trainingcharleston marathon2015fall 2015