Chicago Marathon Training: Week 3!!!

Was anyone else glued to the internet yesterday checking the Western States Endurance Run results? I totally was. I was so happy to see Kaci Licktieg pull out a second place spot. She was pretty far back there when I went to sleep and she must have dug deep at the end. Magda Boulet won the woman’s race with a crazy impressive time of 19:05:21. Such an awesome race… maybe one day I’ll run it. 😉

I had a pretty great training week, despite all of my traveling. I really focused on broadening my paces by making my fast miles faster, and some of my slowest miles even slower. It worked too! I ran miles at 7:30 min/mi and I ran miles in the high 10’s. Doing this helped make 29 miles this week feel not too bad on my legs.

Monday: 5.2 mile Tempo at Marathon Pace (9:00 min/mi)

This was a pretty straight forward tempo run. I felt really comfortable the entire time, even though it was like 90 degrees out with like 100% humidity (I was in Florida). Overall a good workout.

Tuesday: 4.5 miles – no idea what pace because my Garmin was being crazy

I went out for a run that I was hoping to keep at like a 9:30-9:45 pace. However, my Garmin suddenly started reading numbers like 3:15 min/mi and told me that I ran a sub 6 mile (which I did not). It felt like an easy run, so we’ll just call it that.

Wednesday: Lots of Yoga and rest

Thursday: Rest

Friday: Mile Repeats (6 miles at 9:05 with warm up and cool down)

This was a crazy fun workout. I flew back to Kansas and had a few hours between when I had to go get Frank from the airport. He was flying back from Boston. I decided to go to a park and just get some fast miles in. I warmed up for a mile and kept it very slow and then did mile repeats with a 2-minute rest in between. These were my times: 7:31, 7:58, 8:08, 8:13. I know, I was getting slower and slower, but I was ok with that. I was tired from the flight and I probably took that first mile a little too quick (I was trying to stay close to an 8:00 pace). I cooled down for a mile, but this was a fun workout!

Saturday: 3.3 Miles at 9:46 min/mi

This was a recovery run, and it should have been slower. I felt like I had to hold myself back the entire time. I could have been going way faster and still felt good, but I kept reminding myself that I had a long run in the morning. I would occasionally look at my watch and see the time creeping down and I would immediately back off. I gotta say, I was thrilled to feel like that after my workout the day before.

Sunday: 10 mile LSD 9:59 min/mi

What a great long run! I got myself out pretty early in the morning while it was still pleasant. I tried to keep myself as close to 10 min/mi as I could (about a minute slower than my projected marathon pace). Honestly, it felt pretty easy. The whole time I was thinking about Chicago, and how I could keep this pace up forever. I think it also dawned on me, during this run, that I am actually training for a marathon… which is pretty exciting, and scary. I hope all of my future long runs are like this one. Afterwards, I went hiking with Frank, so I think I have about 20 miles on my legs today and I’m pretty tired.

Total: 29 miles!

Next week is the first 30 mile + week. It will be the furthest I’ve ever ran in a single week, and will also have a 12 mile long run in there! It’s getting pretty real over here!

104 days until the Chicago Marathon!!!!

How was your week? Anything exciting?