Training plan detour

Last week was a very interesting week! I think I have been signing up for too many races lately and they are cutting into my training time as most races are on Sundays, and that is my current long run day. My schedule for this week was supposed to be

Day of Week	Scheduled	Actual
Sunday	9mi LR	7.79mi
Monday	Rest	Rest
Tuesday	5mi EZ	Absolutely nothing
Wednesday	Yoga	Nothing again!
Thursday	3x1mi repeats	5k race
Friday	Rest	Rest
Saturday	5mi EZ	3x1mi repeat
Mileage total	24	16.89

So, not very good at keeping with the schedule. Last training schedule I was so good at sticking to. I followed that plan to the tee. This week is already a little bit off. I am on, mileage wise, but pace wise is all over the place. I think I mentioned I found a running group to join, well on last Saturday I met up with them for 1 mile repeats at Virginia Lake.  Those people are crazy! They are all sub 3 hour marathoners! One of them was attempting to set the CR for Virginia Lake on Strava, which he killed by over 30 sec. The “coach” of the group was super nice and is letting me take his Garmin for a 2 week test drive. I wore it on Sunday for my ling run, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It’s a lot easier than carrying my phone around, but it is really big and bulky. It does make me feel like more of a runner though.  For my long run on Sunday, I met up with Reno Running Co for their weekly Sunday Store Runs. I ran with them last week as well, but that was a disaster. As you can see from the above table I was supposed to run 9 miles, but I quit right before 8 miles. I didn’t have the energy, I got lost twice, I ran out of water, and I was just hot. I called my husband to come pick me up. This week, however, was better. I ran the first 7 miles solo, and then met up with the group to run the final 3. I finished with an average pace of 10:37/mi (thanks to the final 3 I did with the group. I can’t help it, when everyone else is running fast, I don’t want to get left behind) which is crazy because before I started with the group, my 7 mile average pace was 11:20/mi.

I am meeting up with another group, NSET, today for a 5 mile run. I met 2 of the NSET runners on Sunday and they convinced me to stop by and run with them. If I keep up with all of these group runs, I will only have to run one day solo, which would be incredible. I would much rather run with others.

In other news, I ran the Tahoe Firecrakcer Trail Trekon the 4^th. I was really excited about this race for some reason. I had this great idea in my mind that I was going to kill it. I would finally get one of those age group medals (judging by previous year’s results). Not so. This was the absolute toughest race I have ever done (even though I haven’t done that many). I know the title of the race includes the word “trail” but don’t ask me why, I had convinced myself, that it was mostly a road race. Wrong again! ¾ of the run was on trails…the soft (like running on sand), extremely narrow (two people aren’t gonna fit on here at the same time), and hilly. It was also the longest 5k of my life. I felt like I was running for hours. I looked down at my phone at one point and I was already at 26 mins (so much for a PR or an age group placement) and I still had half a mile to go! I really wanted to just give up! I had already stopped and walked during parts of the race (with my head hanging low), but instead I thought I would just enjoy the scenery and not try and push my already slow steady pace. I finished in 30:11. This was a short course according to my GPS of 3.02mi, so that puts me at exactly a 10:00/mi pace. I have to say I was a little surprised, seeing as I had walked at three different times, that this wasn’t my worst 5k…just my second worst. All in all, though, I had a good time. I loved the foresty trail we got to run on and just like the last race, I learn a lot from (what I consider at least) my failures. It’s only going to make me a better, stronger runner!