Race week!

Monday: 6.1 mi, road/trail (ran to/from Bagley, did one loop), 144 bpm
Tuesday: 5.2 mi, paved trail (north Lakewalk), 132 bpm
Wednesday: 4.3 mi, trail (Bagley x 2.5), 140 bpm
Thursday: rest
Friday: rest
Saturday: Superior 25K
Sunday: 4.2 mi, road/trail (to/from Dan Proctor trail), 140 bpm
Total: 35.5 mi

Well. The race happened, it was ok. I was actually planning on running on Thursday but I felt fairly crappy. I was fairly aggressive earlier in the week compared to other racing cycles, running trails and/or hilly road routes Monday and Wednesday. I felt good, the weather was amazing, and I was enjoying the time outside.

I didn’t run Friday, as I still had race prep to do, and then I drove up to Lutsen to volunteer at packet pick-up. I did a very short, easy hike around the resort on Friday evening, but that doesn’t really count as a workout.

Saturday, the race happened, blah, it went not-so-great, and I lazed around the hotel room for a few hours before taking another short hike. Semi-active recovery at its finest. I wanted to have a tasty dinner from the resort restaurant, but they didn’t have room service (fine) and then when I tried to get take-out, the front desk transferred me to the “pub” and no one answered the phone. So I ate rice Chex, cookies, and bread and Nutella for dinner. It was extremely disappointing.

I felt decent on Sunday morning. I woke up feeling maybe a bit “hungover,” probably a little lingering dehydration, although I didn’t really end up dehydrated after the race, despite the heat. I suppose I eventually absorbed all the liquid that was sitting in my belly making me feel full the whole race. Whee. My back was stiff from the bed but other than that I felt good. I drove back to Duluth and got a huge latte before I even made it back to my house.

Since I felt pretty awesome (a sign that my mental game is weak and I had plenty more to give in the race) I went for a short run in the afternoon. It was a little bit warm, and I realized with a little over a mile to go that I was pretty hungry, but I felt good. I guess now I can just call the race a “long run” and parlay this week into marathon training. (I’ll get to that later.) Then I went and got a burrito bowl and ate it in about a minute and a half.

This would have been a fabulous training week, but unfortunately it was a goal race week. Womp womp.