Last week’s workouts: winning a 5K + my first taper week in marathon training

Last week was my first week of tapering leading up to the Boston Marathon, and I ran the Hopswap 5K for a tune-up race. It was such a nice change of pace to do a shorter race! (Even though the hills were brutal!)

Hey guys! Happy Thursday! I usually get my weekly workout blog posts up on Sunday or Monday, but with some work travel and general life craziness, it’s a wee bit late this week. Today’s craziness involved starting my morning with a root canal…yay. I was so worried that it was going to mess up my running since they had to reschedule me and I’m now less than two weeks out from Boston. (Priorities!) But they assured me that I would feel back to normal within 48 hours. The root canal itself wasn’t bad – it just took FOREVER. And, I’m still totally numb but she said I’ll probably have quite a bit of pain for the next few days…so I’m on ibuprofen, which I rarely take, so hopefully that helps!

Last week’s workouts: my first taper week!

M – Weight Training & Core Training 

One thing I’ve really struggled to maintain during marathon training is weight training (and I’ve entirely cut out Crossfit). It’s not really because I’m too tired, but rather than I simply don’t have the time given the long distances my marathon training plan was having me do throughout the week. (Midweek runs were anywhere from 6-14 miles, on top of my long weekend run.) But, I noticed that I just didn’t feel myself without lifting and I know that maintaining strength, particularly core strength, is extremely helpful for strong running. I’ve been trying to fit in at least 1-2 lifting sessions a week the last month and I’ve really enjoyed it. Now, granted, I need to cut back on it as I lead up to the race, but I’ll be excited to get back to strength training after the marathon!

T – 8 miles, 8:38 pace – 5×600 @5K pace – V02 Max workout

• Repeats at 6:30 pace
• 3.25 mile warm-up and 2ish mile cool-down

The warmup was ROUGH, but once I started the intervals, this workout felt almost effortless!

W – 6 miles, 8:40 pace – twinning recovery miles with Christian

I love when I match my running friends – ha!

And look at that sky! So pretty. 

Th – tons of walking for a Wake Forest Innovation Quarter photoshoot

I did a photoshoot on Thursday morning at sunrise for an article that the Innovation Quarter is writing about me and we walked a lot! Maizey was thrilled and Tommy was a good sport to get up super early with me to help wrangle her during the shoot.

F – 4.1 miles, 8:31 pace – Recovery Run with Christian

I was supposed to finish with strides but I totally forgot. Whoops!

Sa – Hopswap 5K – 21:05, 6:48 pace – 1st overall female, 7th overall finisher

I ran to the race (about 2 miles) and then kept running after the race (about 3.5 miles) to get in 8.8 total miles for the day. That was the hilliest race I’ve ever run – look at this elevation chart! They handed out a separate prize for the fastest male and female up the Brookstown hill, and I won the prize for that too. I have no idea how because it felt like I was barely moving – ha!   

Su – 14.1 miles, 8:44 pace

I was honestly dreading this run since all my regular running friends had already done their long run for the weekend. I did the first 3 miles alone (and my first split was almost a 10 minute mile since I was so stiff!) and then thankfully I had Alise’s company the rest of the run! She had said she’d run 5 miles with me and she ended up sticking with me for 11 miles! (She doesn’t run over 8 miles that often so I was SUPER impressed.) She’s such a strong runner and doesn’t even realize it.

Total Miles: 42.3 miles

How I’m Feeling: Well, I don’t feel super fresh considering it was my first taper week. BUT, Justin (who is my PT’s husband and runs like a 2:30 marathon) said it’s very normal to feel like crap in the taper. He said I’ll feel hungry, grumpy, sluggish and my runs will feel flat. That is certainly true. Even this week has been feeling that way. But…I’m hopefully next week won’t! I can’t believe the Boston Marathon is so close!

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