Weekly Wrap #15: 3/7 – 3/13

Good morning and welcome to a new week. For us, the last seven days have been very exciting. I ended our wrap last week by wishing everyone luck in the New York City Marathon lottery, and I was one of the chosen ones in the real life version of a Suzanne Collins Hunger Games reaping. I have never been that excited to see hundreds of dollars charged to my credit card as I was on that morning. This will be my second year in a row getting to run New York City. Jen was not able to come and enjoy the weekend with me last year and we are already trying to plan this year’s trip so she can come. I haven’t yet decided if I will be running as a part of the Team Up! with Autism Speaks NYC team.

It wasn’t just me that received good news this week either as Jen (and I) received our confirmation emails for our guaranteed entry into the 2016 Chicago Marathon. Jen told me after that “never before has an email made me nauseous.” I think she’s a little nervous about her first 26.2 miles, but I know she will do great! We both will be running for Team Up! with Autism Speaks and have committed to raising funds to support autism research. If you know anyone who is affected by autism and would like a fun way to show your support as well, we are holding our Piece by Piece 5k virtual race in June and would love for you all to sign up. All of the proceeds will be going to Team Up! If you sign up for our race ($25), we will give you a gift certificate for $25 from our race sponsor, SLS3 – basically your race is free! Hurry, we only have 10 left to give away! We will e-mail codes for anybody that signs up.

And lastly, I am anxiously awaiting the arrival of my 2016 SLS3 Racing Team gear. It was shipped last week and should arrive on Wednesday. I have been seeing other team members receive theirs for days now and it’s slowly killing me. I was very excited to be chosen to represent SLS3 this racing season and I can’t wait to start on April 3 at the Syracuse Half Marathon.

Other than that, it was a normal week around here with the temperature and overall weather slowly improving. We were able to get the inside of the vehicles nice and clean after a winter of salt and sand and we have now slowly begun our spring cleaning room by room. I look forward to getting outside and getting the yard cleaned up so the kids can start going outside on nice days and playing. Here is what our workouts looked like this week:

Travis: Last week I mentioned how I wanted to improve my paces overall and I was happy to see that every run this week was faster. My long run suffered again due to tired legs and stiff winds, but I still was within 30 seconds of my marathon pace. I’m still having a hard time getting to my marathon pace on speed work days. At this point I don’t know if it’s a mental block or physical. I do have some slight knee pain I’ve been nursing, but not severe enough to warrant time off. I’m hoping to run the Syracuse Half in three weeks just under a 7 minute pace, but I don’t know if my legs will be ready by then.

Monday: 8 mi. @ 7:51 pace

Tuesday: 2 mi. warm-up, 6 x 800’s w/1:30 rest, 2 mi. cool down (a.m.)

4 mi. @ 8:08 pace (p.m.)

Wednesday: 6 mi. @ 7:45 pace

Thursday: 2 mi. warm-up, 5 miles @ marathon pace (7:15), 2 mi. cool down.

Friday: Rest Day

Saturday: 16 mi. @ 7:47 pace

Sunday: 6 mi. recovery @ 8:30 pace

Total Weekly Mileage: 56.00 Miles

 

Jen: For me this week flew by. It’s starting to set in that we’re only a few short weeks away from race day. I’ve started getting some nerves that I’m trying to ignore. This training cycle has been going extremely well so I’m trying my best to remain confident that I can hit the goal I’ve set for myself. Wednesday’s speed work was another first for me- mile repeats. I’ll admit that when I saw this workout on my schedule I was nervous. Then I looked at the recommended pace (8:30) set by my coach and I thought he had lost his mind! But, one of the things that I’m loving the most about working with him is that he is pushing me well outside of my comfort zone and it’s making a huge difference. Seriously, if you think that working with a coach is just for “fast” runners, it’s definitely not. In just a couple of months I’ve seen major improvements in my running! If coaching is something you’ve thought about, check out Denny’s guest post or check out his website for more information.

Monday: Extra rest day. I was still hurting from my 10 miler on Sunday and decided it would be better to scrap Monday’s run.

Tuesday: 4 miles

Wednesday: 1 mile warm up, 2 x 1 mile repeats with .5 mile rest, 1 mile cool down. I was very pleased when I was able to hit the paces for each of the repeats. I’m really starting to enjoy these intense workouts!

Thursday: 4 miles

Friday: Off

Saturday: 3 miles

Sunday: 11 miles- this was mentally very tough. Right from the start I wasn’t hitting the paces that I wanted and got in my head about it. I wanted to quit after mile 3 but that wouldn’t have done me any good. Rather than dwelling on it I’m shaking it off and just being glad that I was able to get out on a gorgeous day.

Total Weekly Mileage: 26.5 miles

We’re linking up with Holly and Tricia for the Weekly Wrap