Weekly Workout Recap, Week 8

I have no pictures right now because my camera is being weird... so, sorry about that. But we'll make this recap short and sweet and I'll try to find interesting pictures to throw in from my phone :)

I bought this shirt for $2.88 at Academy. $2.88!!

What I was supposed to be doing:

Monday: Rest/Cross-training day

Tuesday: 2 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

Wednesday: Rest/Cross-training day

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 4 miles @ 8:26 min/pace

Friday: Rest/Cross-training day

Saturday: Rest/Cross-training day

Sunday: 18 miles @ 9:54 min/pace

What really happened:

Monday: rest rest and more rest

Tuesday: 2 miles @ about 9:00 min/pace with the brother; 30 min Pilates

Wednesday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; 30 minutes on the bike at the gym

Thursday: 6 mile tempo run; 3 miles @ 8:27 min/pace, 1 mile @ 8:20 min/pace with 1 mile warm up & 1 mile cool down

Friday: Jackie Warner's arms & abs circuits; I don't remember if I did anything else, but I think I might have walked and I don't have my workout log with me so I'll update this later ;)

Saturday: 5k race

Sunday: 18 miles; the first 9 were at a solid 9:50 min/pace, the last 9 varied between speeding up and slowing down; 10 min total body Pilates, 10 min long & limber Pilates

Overall planned miles: 26

Overall actual miles: 29.1

Louie decided to get in a quick run before I went out to conquer 18 miles.


Despite the fact that I really had a hard time getting motivated to work out for most of the week, I feel like my week went pretty well. My 18 mile run went much better than last week's 16 miler, and it left me pretty satisfied with my whole week of workouts.

I'm taking this week really easy because I'm tired and my body just needs a break. That being said, hitting 18 miles was a really big deal for me because it showed me that my body is capable of carrying me through a full marathon. I don't know what it was about making it to 18 but it made it very real and exciting :)


Tell me something exciting about your weekend! We went out for Mexican food on Saturday night and I had the most ginormous margarita of my life! Because I am a lightweight these days, I was also tipsy after that 1 margarita. We also went to see Horrible Bosses. Eh...

Lunar Rendezvous 5k Race Recap

This past Saturday I ran the 33rd Annual Lunar Rendezvous 5k race out at Space Center Houston.

Let me just preface this by saying this was not a good race for me. 

Let me also get all of my complaints out of the way and blame this on Sean. It was hot. It was humid. It was about to rain (seriously, it started raining about 10 minutes after I finished running). I got no sleep because Sean was out with the guys and I waited up to make sure he got home in one piece which means I went to sleep at 2am and got up at 5:30am. (Ok, it isn't Sean's fault, but I was really tired.)

See how gross that weather looks?!

Complaining over, this just was not a good race for me.

For one, I started out way too fast. 

I ran the first mile in 7:13 (who am I?!).

The first 1.5 miles were OK. I felt ok, but not great. By about mile 1.75 my head left the race. I wasn't into it, I didn't feel great, and I was running way too fast for me. I couldn't slow down. And I mentally gave up. And I walked for about 30 seconds. My pride died right then, I've never walked during a race before. How I can run 18 miles and be OK but walk during a 5k race is beyond me. 

Needless to say, even with my 30 second walk, I ran the second mile in 7:15 (yeahhhh.... I was running wayyyy too fast)

And then I mentally shut down. I've never even come remotely close to walking in a race before. Everyone talks about how running is a mental sport - it is.

I walked twice more after that. I didn't want to be there anymore. I didn't want to run. I just wanted to go home and cry. Was I being overly dramatic? Yes. Did I care? No.

When I slowed down for the third time (I was less than 4/10's of a mile away from the finish) a guy ran up to me and said "NO". And he paced me in the rest of the way. What a miracle worker. I could have hugged him I was so happy that he showed up when he did. Here's a tragic picture of me finishing:

The irony?

I PR'd.

Go figure.

I also came in fourth in my age group, which I don't want to talk about because if I hadn't stopped three separate times I would have placed somewhere in the top 3. 

All I wanted out of the race was to beat my PR. My PR was currently held at 23:18 BUT the course was only 3 miles, not a full 5k. I finished this 5k (and it was the full 5k) in 23:14. 

And then I ran 18 glorious miles on Sunday. GO FIGURE.