Aesthete Runner

What a difference a recovery week makes. Sometimes the recovery is purely physical, but this week I also felt recovered mentally from the challenges I faced in Week 11. I started the week feeling like I was ran over by a bus and down in the dumps about how my back to back long runs had gone. With a little encouragement from my coach and friends, extra rest and recovery, and some enjoyable runs, I am feeling much more like myself.

Week 15 was a recovery week, and it couldn't have come at a better time. The 5 hour long run at the end of Week 14 really took a lot out of me and my body needed lower mileage. However, recovery week doesn't mean an easy week, and I still had two quality runs including a long hill workout to complete.

A wonderful recovery week! Thankfully Week 11 was a mileage cut-back week, and while I still had hard effort runs, it felt good to have a reprieve from higher mileage and a long weekend run.

Week 3 of Glacier Ridge Trail 50k training was a solid week. Even though the weather wanted to make things difficult for me, I feel like I nailed every run and my recovery from my longer or more difficult effort runs was faster than expected. Maybe it was the sports massage I had on Wednesday, but mentally I was in a great space this week.

Another week down and I'm feeling good. It was a solid week of training that went well despite some winter weather that made it more challenging. I reminded myself a lot this week of each run's purpose in the larger picture of the entire 18 weeks.

It is hard to believe it has been 4 weeks since the Chicago marathon, and just this morning I was watching the NYC marathon. What an inspiring day, and it's been a good 4 weeks of recovery and easy runs for me to appreciate and reflect back on my own marathon experience.

It turns out that a cut back week during week 10 of training is still a lot of work. The miles that were cut out of the long run were added to the mid-week runs, so I still put in a lot of time on my feet. It feels odd to say that a cut back week was only 30 miles!

9 weeks down, 7 weeks to go! Another difficult, but great week of training in the books. I think this week was more mentally challenging vs physically challenging. The hot, humid temps came back in full force, and I had to complete my very least favorite speed workout - Yasso 800s.

Finally, a great solid week of training! This past Tuesday marked 2 months until marathon day, and I was happy to start this week rested and ready to take on training. I finally recovered from my "fun" food poisoning adventure, and with the extra rest days during my camping trip, I have never felt more physically or mentally ready.

Finally a "normal" training week. I almost forgot what one of those feels like! I am still enjoying the McMillan custom plan that I have been following, and while the mileage is still a bit low, the speed workouts and actual long run this week were challenging.

The weather has warmed up, it's a holiday weekend, and some people have started marathon training. I love this time of year! I completed my second week of maintenance training last week with the Daniels Blue Plan. It was another tough week of two quality workouts - a speed and tempo workout. My hamstrings are hating this plan, but I can tell I am starting to build back a lot of speed.

That's right...ONE day until my first 50k. I woke up this morning after sleeping in on a day off, and it seemed unreal that at this time tomorrow, I will be running my first ultramarathon.

It's here...the final week leading up to my first 50k. There are times when I feel like I've been training forever and I just want race day to get here, and other days where I wonder if it was enough. Fortunately I had another great week of training that has bolstered my confidence going into the last week of the taper.

It is now officially April and that means my race is in 20 days!!!! The nerves and excitement are starting to set in. Yesterday I had my second 20 mile run and it is definitely sinking in that this is going to be happening...soon.

This past week was the first time I felt challenged beyond what my body was capable of. I started out the week feeling great after the long run, but by the end of the week I was exhausted. This week's lesson was in rest and recovery.

The balancing act continued this past week as I somehow managed to adjust to a new job, morning running, and a 20 mile long run. I might be crazy, but I am actually happy that the clocks jumped ahead last night as now I can get in some runs after work.

What a week! I started my new job, became a morning runner, and ran one of my longest training runs in a while. Needless to say, I am exhausted! I am still working on balancing a new job, training for my first ultra, and everything else in life, but I know that each week will get easier.

With the conclusion of the Hansons base building plan I have been writing about for 8 weeks, I picked up with the Hansons Beginner Half plan to continue training for the F^3 Lake Half Marathon that I wrote about back in November . While I am no beginner to the half marathon, the Hansons beginner plan is what I previously used to achieve my 6 min half marathon PR last spring, and there is nothing "beginner" about it. I couldn't have picked a better time to pick up the plan as it aligned with the start of Hansons strength workouts. After doing speedwork for the past 8 weeks, it was perfect timing to stop the speed runs and focus more on strength. I discuss the strength workouts in more detail in my Marathon training post here .

This was a very cold and snowy week for any sort of outdoor activities, let alone training. Nevertheless, I made a point to find a relatively clear trail to run on and was able to get in the majority of my scheduled runs.

It is week 3 of Hansons Base Building plan and I think I am finally getting the hang of this. With more familiarity of the various runs, I really enjoyed this week and could tell a difference in my overall speed. Here was my plan for the week: