Week 28 – Successes and Failures (rounds up to success, right?)

18 July, 2018 Off By Renée

I know I’m late posting this – life is kind of busy at the moment.  Here’s how last week turned out:

 

Monday rest day, nothing special, just work, and doing stuff in the house after work.

how I feel about Mondays

 

Tuesday Fartleks at Runiversity.  For some reason I did read what the training would be and then promptly forgot about it.  I had a recovery run in my head instead for some reason!  I got to training and heard we were going to do 6 – 8 KM depending on how things went for everyone.  In the end it was 6.5KM.   And actually it went well;  our training used cues for when we had to go faster and for how long.  At one point (it was color – pink and white), we saw 2 white cars right after one another passing us and then near the end about 6 pink shirts (another running group) so there were quite a few long quicker tempos!  I enjoyed it and was glad it was more than a recovery run.

always love this view on the way back home from training

 

 

Wednesday –  New release of BodyPump at the gym!  Tough day at work, rushing to get home on time and then Vincent picked me up around 5:10pm so we could get a good place in class.  Good class too – but it’s going to be a LOT of quad work!!   Oh and I did weigh-in, I just didn’t post about it.  I was down 500 grams, which means for the two weeks total I’m down 100 grams.  Still, I’m under 74 now, so that’s good.  I need to keep an eye on it, because I also started my medication that the neurologist wanted me to try.  I’m not happy about it, but I feel like I’m running out of options.

 

 

Thursday – Another rest day and another tough day at work where I ended up staying later.  Exhausted once I finally got home.  I cooked us a quick thrown-together meal and we did a few things in the house.  Bit by bit getting things done!

 

The Fonz is loving his new music space

 

Friday – I did go to work in the morning even though it’s my normal day off, because we have a special process 1 x a month that I am the “expert” in and the other two are learning so my manager (who is on holiday in Spain) asked if I would mind to be there just in case I was needed.  And I was.  Problems from the get-go.  Ugh.    At 11:30 I did leave to go to the physio – my acupuncturist / dry-needling physio recommended I have a chat with the foot/ankle guy so I reluctantly agreed and made an appointment.  As I figured, he really didn’t know what to do or say.  So I do not quite know what my next move is, if I am going to make a move OR just work on acceptance.  I spent a few hours at home just vegging on the couch, binge watching Queer Eye.  After Ron arrived home from work we then both went out to do our intervals.  I was supposed to run my 200 m intervals around 52 seconds and ended up around 54 as average (10 x 200 / 100m rest).  Super happy with my training tonight!

 

 

Intervals – CHECK!

Saturdayno RPM this morning.  Vincent had to work and I had massage clients in the afternoon so I decided to skip it. Little did I know this would come back to bite me in the ass on Sunday… once I was done with clients I went home (via a favorite café for slight decompression session for myself) , Ron and I had dinner and that was pretty much us for the night.

Sunday – I woke up way too late for my long run. I wanted to get started around 8:30 and I didn’t actually get out of the bed until 8… oops. I was still feeling my blown-up quads from my intervals and my calves were pretty tight from standing/ working Saturday afternoon. According to Garmin, my long run was to be 1 and a half hours. According to my Runiversity trainer, I was supposed to try 25KM at a specific pace and hold steady. Let’s just say Garmin won. Ron mapped out a route for me but I was just toast by 7KM. It was warm. My legs were exploding and I drank way too much water (the belly did not like that at all) because I was so damn hot! I knew the guys (Ron and Vincent) were going to run in the afternoon so I jumped on a train at Arnhem South (I was running to there anyway, and was supposed to circle back home via Meinerswijk for the 25KM), got home, changed into bike clothes and hopped on the bike to at least ride with them. They did a slightly different route, so I ended up with 11KM running and 23KM biking.

I was completely exhausted when we were done (though biking at their fast running speed is still not fast biking); we literally crashed on the couch, ordered pizza ( I KNOW! ) and watched the World Cup Final (sad the Croatians lost). I took a shower afterwards and got ready for bed.

 

 

Even wild horses were looking for shade!

This was the reason I wanted to run through Meinerswijk in the first place!

 

Week 29 will be challenging. Since we are already in week 29 as I post this I can tell you – I had to switch my training from Tuesday to Monday as this week is the 4 Day March in Nijmegen. This event occurs every year and walkers (you are NOT allowed to run) from all over come and participate. One of my colleagues is doing it for the 9th year, a client of mine the 12th. Several other people I know are participating as well. It’s a huge deal on this side of the country. 4 days of 30, 40 or 50 KM. EVERY DAY for 4 days. Nuts!! So this week not only do I have to work all week (no day off Friday) at my regular job, I also am working Tues/Weds/Thurs in the evening for massage. I’m already slightly stressed about it, but I chose this so I’m trying to just focus on that. And just remember to breathe of course…

So week 29 looks like this:
Monday – run with BRENG (done!)
Tuesday – lunch walk (done!), massage clients
Wednesday – lunch walk, massage clients
Thursday – lunch walk, massage clients
Friday – intervals after work
Saturday – not sure, may go to RPM, may skip to save the legs
Sunday – long run, may try the 25KM again, may follow trainer’s schedule

Hope you all had a good week!

What do you do when you “fail” a long run?  Do you dwell?  Do you do something else?  What’s the best way to “make up” the mileage?