Hey, week 6 went well! I’m pretty pumped to have had two training weeks in a row where I didn’t wuss out on anything. I have very low standards.

I am very glad today is a rest day, although once I started moving around today I felt a lot better than I thought I would. My hips are suffering the most. I need an oil can. My lower back is a little stiff too. My legs and feet feel fine.

Summary:
Monday rest
Tuesday 4.4 miles, road, hill repeats included
Wednesday 5.2 miles, road
Thursday 3.5 miles, road + trail
Friday 4 miles, Lakewalk, medium tempo run
Saturday 4.2 miles, trail
Sunday 9 miles, Lakewalk
Total 30.3 miles!

Thursday I took another stab at Chester Creek, and while it wasn’t entirely runnable, it was passable enough. It was just what I needed since I was getting kind of crabby about running.

The view on the way:

Trees bent over the creek:

I love living here.

Saturday I went to Hartley Nature Center, intending to do my 9 miler. That didn’t happen. There was still snow and ice in spots, and I wasn’t wearing my chains, so I slid around a lot and fell on my butt once. It was not a good feeling, especially since I was already feeling crummy from my “speed” workout from Friday. In places it was so muddy I was slipping as badly as I was on the ice, and half of the trails were closed due to mud. I shudder to think what kind of condition they were in if the sloppy messes I was on were still open. So I conceded I wasn’t going to get the 9 miles done (I was going slow as heck anyway, ended up with a pace under 3 mph!) and got to 4.

Sunday I got out of bed late, took much longer than expected to do homework, and practically had to drag myself out the door thanks to rather depressing-looking weather. It turned out to be much warmer than I thought so I felt a little better about the impending run. I went to the Lakewalk because I knew it was about 4.5 miles round trip and it had easy access to my car and to a bathroom, so I could bail if things sucked horribly halfway through and I could get a quick bathroom break if needed.

The run itself went ok. My hips hurt (mildly) through a lot of it, which caused me to question if I am overdoing this training and need to rethink my marathon plans. Considering I don’t feel like total crap today, I am disregarding those thoughts. It rained a little bit, but only lightly, so it didn’t bother me. At times the wind was demoralizing. Running straight into gust after gust of wind was unpleasant.

I managed to keep my heart rate relatively low (mid 140s) for the first 5 miles, but it crept up during the last 4, probably due to fatigue and to wind. I managed to hold myself back from pushing it for most of the run. At the end I wanted to see if I had another gear (because I was doubting myself and doubting my ability to complete a marathon upright), but after a few strides I slowed down, reminding myself that I wouldn’t be finishing much faster and I would feel worse the next day or even hurt myself.

Here are my splits:
16:02
16:10
16:20
15:31
16:00
15:35
15:38
15:47
15:29

Those last 4 miles were fairly consistent (for me), which is a good sign. I have been having a tough time maintaining a consistent pace. The fifth mile is a bit of an outlier because I was running straight into the wind for about half a mile. (I know I said I don’t like to make excuses, but it’s only an excuse for why my pace was a little off the surrounding miles. It’s not an excuses for slowness. THEY ARE ALL SLOW SPLITS.)

This upcoming week includes a 12 mile long run, which will be a nice test. I hope that I can keep the pace in the mid 15s again. Right now the most important thing for me on long runs is consistency and endurance, and then I can just pray the hills and tempo runs will bring that consistent pace down. A solid plan!