Saturday Rest, Sunday Race

For the first time in I can't remember when, I had a lazy Saturday. I did not run. I slept past 8 am. I honestly can't remember the last time when either of those things happened. After JFK, I am going to make sure these two things happen more often. I realized how productive one can actually be in a Saturday when you don't run for 5 hours, which in turns leaves you (me) tired and worthless for the rest of the day. Anyway, I slept in. Went to a nice breakfast with Dan (Austin peeps, we went to Cafe Java in Round Rock - I highly reccomend it), cleaned my car, went to the grocery store, cleaned the house, took the dogs to the park...all before Noon. I spent the rest of the afternoon reading and resting for Sunday's race.

Sunday's race was the Run for the Water 10 miler, which is race #2 in the Austin Distance Challenge and also served this year as the RRCA State 10 Mile Championships, making it a money race. This race is notoriously hilly, but it's actually one of my favorite courses, and this was the 4th year that I've run it. I was actually pretty "meh" about this race this year. One, it started at 7 am in downtown Austin, which meant a 4:30 am wake up call. Second, I was still so freaking tired from work last week that I thought about skipping the race, sleeping in and running on my own. My nutrition had also been absolutely horrible this week, and I was pretty sure that Friday nights dinner of fried mushrooms, nachos, wings and beer wasn't the best choice (especially since I had Freebirds for lunch). But, my registration fee was paid, and so I raced it. I wasn't sure what I was going to bring to the table yesterday. Last year, I had PR'd on this course with a 1:09:18, and I hoped I could come somewhat close to that time.

Somehow, I managed to knock out a good race. Probably 99% due to the fact that I rested on Saturday and only ran a few easy miles on Friday. And, because when you are used to running a zillion miles on the weekends, 10 miles sure does seem short. I ended up finishing in 11th place among women out of 765 (women), just 4 seconds shy of 10th place (of course). But, if Desiree Ficker is taking 5th at this race, then I'll gladly take 11th place and be proud of it. My Garmin stats: 10.08 miles/1:07:49/6:43 pace; Official results: 10 miles/1:07:49/6:46 pace.

Last week ended up being my lowest week of mileage in awhile, but it was also one of my highest intensity weeks in awhile with hard speed workouts Tues/Thurs and then a 10 mile race on Sunday. One mistake I've made with 50 mile training is too much speed work. I kept it in my training plan because 2 months after JFK, I'm running the Rock & Roll Phoenix Marathon, in which I was hoping to PR. But, I've realized I've been putting too much emphasis on the speed work. The volume of training I am doing coupled with the high intensity of some of my workouts just isn't leaving me much time at all to recover. So, this will be my last week of speed work until the 50 miler. I'll still go to the Tues/Thurs RunTex workouts, but take it down several notches (run group friends, please hold me to this).

Anyway, last week:
Monday - 7.11 mile recovery, 35 minutes core work
Tuesday - 9.78 miles - Run Group - Hills, Lunch Swim 2,000yds
Wednesday - 5 miles easy, Lunch Swim 2,000yds
Thursday - 10.11 miles - Run group - 800's, 200's, hills
Friday - 4 easy
Saturday - REST
Sunday - 3 mile warm up, 10 mile race
Total Running Miles - 49

I hope everyone has a safe and fun Halloween! If you live in the area and are trick or treating, swing on by. We'll be the ones sitting on our front porch with our two bassets dressed in costume (much to my husband's dismay) passing out candy. Also, Happy Birthday to my Mom (hi Mom!).