To Blog, or Not to Blog

That is the question I’ve been debating. Surprisingly, these blog posts take me much longer to put together than I expected (or than they appear) and I haven’t had the attention span or energy to do them after my kids are in bed. I was definitely suffering a little burnout towards the end of my spring training cycle and cut way back on running this past month. Without that focus there also wasn’t much to blog about. Now that July is here and I’m (mostly) committed to training for a fall marathon I’ve wondered if I would keep up the blog.

When I first started the blog it was to have some accountability and hopefully find other bloggers in my area or training for Chicago too. And the accountability factor has been a huge motivator to me. Last week was my first week of training for a fall marathon and the first time I had a targeted speed workout in awhile. Training called for 3x1600m repeats and after the 2nd one I was already talking myself out of doing the 3rd. I can just sub an 800m for the last repeat. It doesn’t matter. But in the back of my head I was also thinking about what I would blog about it. And the thought of having to admit publicly that I quit because it was hard was enough to push me to complete the final repeat.

I’ll admit that there are very, very few readers of this blog 🙂 But it’s still enough of an audience for it to come to mind when I’m struggling and help push me through. So, I’m hoping to continue blogging and hoping it will be a strength in my training for the Baystate Marathon. 

Heading in to this training cycle I had hoped to hang on to more of my speed and endurance from my spring half marathon. I’m using a plan primarily based on Run Less, Run Faster’s 3 key runs per week and adding in 2 additional days of easy running. The paces in RLRF tend to be on the aggressive side, so I’m instead using the range of paces suggested on McMillan Running based on my recent half marathon PR. I’m starting at the slow end of the range and hoping to progress to the faster end of the range during my training.

Week 1 Recap: June 27 – July 2

Monday: 3M Recovery Run @9:33

Tuesday: Plan: 3×1600 @6:51 (400 RI) – Actual: 1.5M w/u 3×1600 (7:19, 7:19, 7:27), 400m RI, 1M c/d – This was the run where I wanted to throw in the towel on the last repeat. Instead of cutting the repeat short or skipping it all together, I did bump down the pace a little which helped me finish it out. You can see in this example that RLRF calls for the repeat at 6:51 pace, while even the fastest end of the range under McMillan is 10 seconds slower. Since I’ve always been slower than the suggested paces in RLRF, I think I’ll be okay sticking with McMillan’s pace suggestions.

Wednesday: off

Thursday: Plan: 2M E, 2M T @7:23, 2M E – Actual: 2M @9/8:41, 2M @7:31, 2M@9:42 – This was another run that showed me how much my past month of half-hearted running had impacted my running. Those 2 tempo miles had my lungs burning and I needed to really slow down my last 2 easy mile paces to bring my heart rate back down. 

Friday: 5M Easy @9:17

Saturday: off

Sunday: Plan: 13M @8:40 – Actual: 13M @8:41 – I really prefer to do my long runs on Saturday so it’s done and I feel like I can enjoy the rest of the weekend. But I had a lot on my mind Friday night and didn’t fall asleep until close to 2am. There was no way I could wake up a few hours later to go for a long run so I pushed it to Sunday. This was my longest run since my half marathon at the end of May and I was a little worried about it. Since it was the Sunday before the 4th of July the streets felt empty. It was so quiet and relaxing to be out without the constant stream of cars. Overall a pretty good start to marathon long runs, but a little scary that this will be my shortest long run until taper 😳 Splits: (9:16, 8:45, 8:58, 8:37, 8:39, 8:51, 8:52, 8:35, 8:24, 8:26, 8:28, 8:21)

Weekly Total: 33 miles