Heading Into Spring

My 7 week plan to prep for a 12K seems very simple:

3 harder running workouts per week: 1 long (6 or more); 1 speed session (track group or solo); and one of either tempo/strength intervals/hill repeats.  2-3 additional days of easy runs, walking, biking, or yoga.  Continue to maximize consumption of healthy home-cooked meals.

But, like anything, reality is more complicated than making a plan.

A beautiful Simpson's cloud day -- perfect day to show off the farmer's market to a visitor.

The week after the Austin 5K (week -6) started off wonderfully.  I hit a 75 minute Vinyasa class with a friend in Austin on Monday and spent the next two days enjoying the random muscle soreness of all the parts that were surprised by sudden attention.  The rest of the week was meh.  I got out every day and did something, but I returned home with a virus (because the friends we were visiting have children and I pretty much always get sick after we visit friends with young children).

On Saturday, feeling like I might be recovered, I cobbled together a very slow 12:38/mile 4.75 miles and finished it off with 30s/60s of medium effort run/walk intervals for a total of 5.95 miles, which I called the week's long run.  The next day, I did 2X1.5 mile strength intervals at 11:43 and 10:42 and looked back on the week as a whole with a little disappointment, but happy to hit (barely) all 3 of the target workouts.

Carrot, celery, lime, pickle, olive, jalapeno,

giant caper bloody mary -- another

splurge with our visitor. 

Last week didn't start out much better.  Monday's and Tuesday's workouts were both shortened and I couldn't join Wednesday's track group.  When I tried to do the track workout by myself on the treadmill, in the afternoon, I could not hit the paces prescribed by McMillan for my target 12K, so I opted to do as much of the workout as I could at the prescribed paces instead of slowing down.  I know I can run 12K without stopping.  What I need to increase is my speed, so in the interests of doing so, I'm going to try to hit the assigned paces as best I can on the speed and strength intervals, even if it means cutting the distances short a little bit -- this approach is very different from my normal approach of "do whatever you need to do to get the assigned distance done" so I'm hopeful I'll see some benefits, if only because it's a change in the type of loading I typically take on.

It was pouring buckets of rain on Thursday, so instead of the planned for 6 miles, I made a deal with myself and did side lunges, push-ups, dips, abs and 0.5 easy warm-up, followed by a solid 9 X 400 at 10K pace at 1% incline and walking recovery plus a nice easy 0.5 mile walking cool-down.

Nothing like touring your own area with a visitor to remind 

you just how amazing it is.

This ocean view is just 45 minutes from our house.  NBD.

Friday I took a rest day to tour local towns with our visitor (she may move *to* the bay area, which would be a welcome change from all of our friends who have left). Saturday was an easy 3.5 with our visitor and Sunday was another rest day.  So, week -5 was not a success on the 3 workout minimal plan -- I only hit 1 of the 3 target workouts.  But, we hosted a visitor and executed on some big life stuff that we'd been wanting to do for a long time, which took quite a bit of time, so I'm going to cut myself some slack.

Grilling.  In March. The Chi-town visitor was happy.

This week and next week are full of travel, so it'll be interesting to see what, if anything, I manage to pull off in the running realm...