Skidaway Island half marathon training: week 5 (2/23-3/1)
Week 5 of half marathon training was a pretty good week. I hit my first double digit run since the Charleston Half and ran it at a moderately easy pace that ended up being faster than my official half pace a little over a month ago, so I'm happy with that progress.
Because I still consider myself to be in the base building phase this half of the year, I'm not doing a ton of speedwork with this round of training. If I can't make it out to my group session for speedwork on Tuesdays, I just skip it for the week. Some of those weeks, I've done 5K races, so that subs for speedwork anyway.
Along a similar line, since I was on my own and without my running group for my long run, I entertained the idea of running part of my long run at target half marathon pace, which right now is about 8 minutes per mile. But I decided it would just be better to stick with a moderately easy run at a steady pace. I targeted somewhere between 8:45 and 8:55 and aimed for mostly negative splits. Overall, I was successful (and actually on the faster side), and my last 1.13 miles of my 10.13 mile run were the fastest, so I had a strong finish and some gas left in the tank. All good things.
I'll be back with my running group for this week's run and the fastest pace group they have is 9:30, so I'll be slowing it down for this week at least. I'd like to get a few more faster double digit runs in before Skidaway even if it means running without my training group.
Saturday I wanted to run 3-4 miles with the stroller for a recovery run, but D was out of town and it was too cold to take B out. By the time D got home, it was raining, but since I still wanted to shake things out, I did a super short, super easy 2.5(ish) miles.
I capped off the week with my first ever trail race (and third ever trail run). It was 37 degrees, pouring, and muddy, but it was a lot of fun and I'm looking forward to more trail running and racing. I'll post a recap later this week.
Just a few more weeks until my goal half for this season! I'm hoping to get in at least four more double digit long runs, which is more than I've ever done for any half training in the past.
In summary (too long, didn't read):
The week in workouts:
- Monday: OFF
- Tuesday: Strength/core - 60 minutes (Burn workout DVD) + 20 minutes elliptical (6:54 pace)
- Wednesday: 20 minutes core + Run - 6.09 miles (8:24 pace)
- Thursday: OFF
- Friday: Run - 10.13 miles (8:46 pace)
- Saturday: 2.43 recovery run (9:05 pace) + 15 minutes core/strength recovery run
- Sunday: Race & Roast Trail Run 5K
Total miles: 21.75
Total runs: 4
Total core/strength workouts: 3
Total crosstraining: 1