The REAL week 2: Training for the Rockin K Trail marathon

Thank you everyone for all of the input on length of cycles.  I feel a little bit better at shortening it to 12 from 20 now.  Now to figure out how long my 50 miler training cycle should be!  I have heard up to 6 months so need to figure that one out!!!

Monday: Cross fit. Okay, so I always check on the work out the night before just to make sure if there is anything math related, I have it done ahead of time.  I can't math on a good day in the middle of the day, so early in the morning is a NO GO.  When I saw the WOD for the day I thought, geez, that is going to take me forever.  180 single unders, 30 kettle bell swings, and 15 burpees for 6 rounds.  Mind you this is post back squats and a warm up that is what I use to do as a work out LOL!  I wanted to quit several times, not going to lie.  After the first round, my coach let me scale back to 120 single unders and a lighter kettle bell, just so I could get 6 rounds done in a reasonable time.  She also gave me a choice to do 10 burpees, but I was already doing super scaled burpees, so I felt like that was unfair.  I did 6 rounds total in 34 minutes and some change and I am SO glad I didn't give up.  That was tough and I was hoping I could function for the rest of the day semi normally!

Tuesday:  Run day.  Most of my weekly runs in this cycle are going to be 5-7 miles.  I am keeping it very simple since I am the one making this plan :)  Speed work is going to be by feel.  If my legs feel good and I want to push it, I will probably do cycles of 1 minute hard 1 minute easy up to 10 or so cycles.  Nothing too crazy since my legs are being tested in Cross Fit.  I woke up with SUPER sore calf muscles.  I did two things recently that i think may have caused this.  One, I ran without my heel cups in my shoes Sunday for my long run.  I have a couple of pairs that I rotate around in my various shoes and I had taken mine out of my Stinsons to put in my bondis to run on the dreadmill.  I didn't even notice till I got about a mile down the road, and I didn't want to go back due to the stupid ice.  I also did 720 jump rope skips in the WOD the day before.  I haven't jumped rope since probably elementary school oh 30 or so years ago, so that one also might have contributed to my soreness. Compression sleeves, R8 roller and some stretching to the rescue!

I also stood up all day yesterday at the shop for the first time in a long time, on a stress mat of course, but still I sit A LOT now and so add all of those things together and you get some sore calf muscles.

I thought as I walked Andrew to school that the snow and ice was turning into slush, thanks to the warmer temperatures and the drizzle we were getting. Boy was I wrong!!!! I headed out to feels like 37 and got home to feels like 24 and ICE!   I said many cuss words and had to have stella steady me several times to make it.  I thought there would be enough snow that I could run in the snow on the side of the roads, but even that had been turned into crusty ice.

my running route was solid ice!  Tried to keep in the crusty snow as much as I could

By the time I got back to the shop, school was being let out due to the buses sliding on the ice in the morning and the ice only getting worse.  It is days like today that make me SO glad that i now work 2 minutes from the house and my hubby is my boss :)

Wednesday:  After a disastrous Tuesday due to ice, the schools decided to call off school for Wednesday and i am really glad they went ahead and made the decision.  We had a lot going on at the shop, but our workers needed extra time to get to the shop (voluntary attendance, they just come because they love us), so we slept in and took our time getting ready to go to the shop.  I had started feeling badly Tuesday night.  Andrew had a little congestion the past couple of days and I guess I got whatever he was incubating.   The only problem, mine came with a really horrible sore throat too. I will take it, i would rather have the version that is the worst.  Early bed times, vitamin C, and lots of rests built in through out the day were a must.

Thursday:  I woke up feeling much the same, not better or worse but it wasn't in my chest and I follow the rule of head up, keep going, below the head or fever, rest.  After walking andrew to school and seeing HUGE patches of ice, I decided even with Yak Tracks that it wasn't worth it to run outside.  Cue up the ridiculously loud pop music that I never listen to and the 4:1 intervals to pass the time.  I tried to play with the settings so i was doing a variety of speeds during the 4 minute run to try and keep my sanity.  When my mill hit 5, my watch still said 4.5 but i noticed when my walk intervals came up that it would blank out the speed, so that makes sense.  Deleted my watch data and just did a manual entry.  My mill's output made the most sense for the speed I was going on my walks and runs compared to what i had been doing outside anyway.  Mill for the win :)

Later on I had my very last private session with coach Erin.  While Coach Erin teaches my classes that I am taking in the mornings, I still will miss our one on one time.  We decided to just do strength training and skip the WOD since the WOD Monday just about did me in.  I did voice my concern about having class, run, class, and run before I had a rest day, but we both decided to try it and see.  There are no classes on Thursday as it is open gym, and I hate it because Thursdays would fit in my schedule SO much better than Monday and Wednesday. URGH.  We worked on our dead lift series with my final 2 x being at 123. I actually felt like I could go a little higher, so am super excited to see where I can go!  We also did some shoulder work using the bar and some light weights to do strict presses.  I really wanted to use my legs to get that bar up.  We ended with some core/mid-line work doing some dead bug.  That exercise looks so easy, but when you try hard to keep you lower back on the ground while doing the exercise, it kicks your ass!

Friday:  After a long night of not great sleep thanks to super weird dreams about running an MRI machine and having to read MRIs (I have no clue where this came from and no I did not take any meds), I woke up super tired and super snot filled.  I have heard this version of the cold I got takes at least 2 weeks to get over.  At least my throat isn't hurting anymore and I am glad I have a worse version than my son.   By the end of the day, we were both running super low grade fevers and feeling pretty icky.  Some jambalaya, some decaff coffee, and Momma Mia on the tv was just what the doctor ordered.

Saturday:  Long run day!  Since Sunday is jammed packed with activities, my long run day fell on Saturday this week.  I really, really, really wanted to find a place that wasn't ice/slush/mud, so I put it out on FB asking what shape our local "trail" was in.  I was told some snow and some ice but not bad.  Well, I should have known better because when I parked at the very end of the trail, it was solid snow that quickly changed to ice the further I got.

Ice from where people had hiked and made slush and it had re frozen

 I thought about trying to do the river trail and headed down for a short jaunt, but it was solid ice with a little bit of snow on top, so I was slipping and sliding too much.  I still haven't screwed my shoes OR started with my yak traxs, so it's my fault I couldn't get traction.  I quickly turned back to get back on better footing.  Plus, you guessed it, loose dog on the trail that while super friendly would NOT get out of stella's face and the owner could NOT get it under control.  The owner almost fell trying to get the dog back on leash, but I honestly didn't feel sorry for him.  He made a statement about this is why you never get off leash max or whatever the dog's name was, yet not 15 minutes later they were on the main trail WITH HIM OFF LEASH AGAIN.  Okay, so why did you even say that dude if you aren't going to keep your dog on leash?????

In heading out, most of the trail was like this.  The part of the trail that were on concrete I had to walk very carefully on, and the parts that were on the limestone gravel I was able to slog through.  By the time I turned around to head home, a lot of that had turned to pure slush and mud, and I got to wog home so that I stayed upright.  I LOVE winter running, but this is getting super old.  Can we just have cold and negative wind chills and no ice???  Please?????  Afterwards stella and I hit up the coffee shop (my prize for making it through was a nice cup of frufru coffee topped with whipped cream) and had coffee and soup.  

I kind of didn't realize how muddy I was because the front of me was fine.  Whoops!  Stella was also covered but she dried quickly and I was able to brush her out instead of washing her.

  

Sunday:  Easy run day, baseball camp, birthday parties, and grocery shopping.  I woke up not totally read to run yet so I headed to manhattan to grocery shop and get that done with.  I actually go to go solo and it was kind of nice :) Back to the house and finally out the door to run.  My normal running route was now solid mud, so Deuce and I had fun slipping and sliding.  We kind of had an adventure when we got back to town and there was a train sitting on the tracks not moving. 

We could see the end of the train, so we chose to go off road and around the back and then resume our run.  I hope I didn't break some sort of rail road law, but we crossed plenty behind it.  When we got back, I opened the bathroom door and prepared for a fight.  Deuce was covered in mud but he HATES the bathroom and baths and will fight you to the death.  Surprisingly, he ran in and leapt into the bathtub like WASH ME!!!!  I was so shocked that he willing went in.

the aftermath

Have a great week!  I am looking forward to less mud and less ice.  How about you?

I am linking up with HoHo runs and Wendy at Taking the Long Way Home for the weekly wrap!  Check out all of the other great bloggers who blog in the link up, you won't be disappointed!