Week 4 - Real training for a real person

Before I start with this week's recap, WARNING!! WARNING!! Rant ahead!!

Life sometimes throws curveballs. Life is not always neat and pretty and tied up with a bow. Life can be messy and complicated, and yeah, it can fuck with my training schedule. Like, on a weekly basis. Listen people - I am only one person, and NEWSFLASH: I am NOT Wonder Woman. There, the cat is out of the bag, and I have admitted it. Let's all GET OVER IT and move on.

I have read two marathon training books and NOWHERE in either one of them was there any mention of how to get thru this tight training schedule when real like impedes on it. Uh...hello? SHIT HAPPENS! Can I read a book on how real people with real lives can do a realistic training schedule and still be properly prepared for running a half/whole marathon?? Is that too much to ask? I mean seriously, come on! Doesn't anyone have anything better to do that run? I am starting to get irritated and frustrated that I have yet to have a "perfect" training week. I am thru one month of "training" and I have to put freaking quotes around that word like I'm a poser pretending to train. This is getting ridiculous. And already, I know that Week 5 is not going to be much better. This is going to be a familar theme for the month of July. Here's why:

Week 4: I was sick. See below for the whining and complaining and excuses.

Week 5: Bill's dad passed away Sun night, so I'll be in Niles for the majority of this week - no doubt NOT running.

Week 6: my mom visits. hey, on second thought, this week I might get in some extra running (hahahah).

Week 7: the Gonzalez crew from Boston visits Niles - their once/yr trip back to MI. I'll be in and out of Niles that week with who-know-what schedule.

Yep, that pretty much takes care of July. I am so fucking fucked.

so here's the end of my rant. real life can NOT take a backseat and just chill so I can get my fucking training in. So? I do the best I can, and bear the brunt of K8 telling me I suck. Which I do. Fuck it.

And now, the lowdown for Week 4.

Monday - ran 2 miles as a "recover run" from the 10K on Sat with Graveel. yes, I know smart-asses, the recovery run is supposed to be the day after the race. tough shit. I was tired (waaah) on Sunday. and frankly, my legs were still spent on Monday. but the run was good after I got going. this week is starting off well! things are looking good. I'm going to have a great week training! Yeah! yeah. what-the-fuck-ever.

Tuesday - ran my true love - the FARTLEK. Went hardcore today - 30/30s baby! What are 30/30s? Let me tell you - that is the most DREADED of all sprint workouts. I did them back in college and they were the worst and best training days EVAH! Here's how it worked when I was in college:

An outdoor track is a quarter mile - 400m. Half the track is then, yes for you brainiacs - 200m. Sprinters can run the 200m sub-30sec, how sub is depending on how good they are (my best time BTW? 27.7sec - yeah, I was fast, but not that fast). Ok, so this is how the 30/30s workout went. We'd line up at the starting line and take off at a 30sec pace for 200m. Stop at the 200m mark in 30 sec (or less if you were psycho or had too much adrenaline or forgot you had a long fucking way to go for this workout) - and it'd better be within 30 sec or there would be hell to pay from the coach (more on that in a min). We'd jog in place at the top of the track for 30 sec (our coach would be at the starting line yelling at us - sometime she'd even sprint across the field at us to yell at us up close and personal). And you bet - you'd better keep MOVING for that 30 sec recovery - jog in place, jog in a circle - whatever - but keep fucking MOVING OR ELSE. Then we'd take off at 30sec pace for the next 200m back to the starting line.

rinse and repeat, baby. rinse and repeat. We'd start off with sets of 4 (as in 4-30 sec 200m sprints with 30sec rests in between) - start off with 3 sets. Sound easy? try it sometime. it will whoop your ASS. I promise. By the end of the first set you feel whipped. halfway thru the second set, you feel like you might die. If you're lucky, and everyone in the group was able to keep at or under 30sec for EVERY sprint in both sets, our coach might let us do the last set as a set of 2 instead of 4. However, if one of us, and ONLY one of us didn't hit 30 sec for even ONE 200m, we had to do the entire set 3. And god forbid if one of us didn't hit 30sec in set 3?

oh fuck. you know it. set 4 was locked and loaded.

So based on that workout I did my own version - mile warmup, then 2 sets of 4 - 30sec sprints with 30sec rests in between each sprint and 2 min jog in between each set. Then another mile up the Michigan hill and a 3 min walk cooldown. Total time, minus the cooldown - 25min27sec - about 2.5 mi total.

and let me tell you, it was tough but it felt good to get those fast-twitch muscles moving. I LOVE the fartlek. LOVE IT!

Wed - 40 min mountain biking with Leanne at game area. parts 1 and 2 only still. didn't make it up the big/long/fucking impossible hill on 2 but I did manage to get up the steep rutted out hill on that part (YEAH ME!). so that's something. progress. and we're getting faster - we did each part under 20 min. Once we can do both in 30 min we move on to include parts 3 and 4. the goal? well, there are two I think: 1) do all 4 parts in under and hour, and 2) do all 4 parts without ever having to get off the bike (to walk up/down/over something - this does not include a bail/dump which I feel are necessary in that if I don't get dumped off my bike at some point in the ride, I feel it isn't a "good" ride. Check it - I'll turn into a real mountain biker yet!! Oh yeah, the dirtier the ride, the better!).

Thurs - well, here starts the downhill slide for the week. Wed I had a sore throat. by wed afternoon I was full on feeling like crap. By thurs a.m. I not only could breathe fire, but was dealing with a head cold to boot. No running today.

Fri - same as thurs - I figure it's better to get healthy and not run, than to try running and make my cold worse. an excuse? eh, maybe. honestly I was trying to take care of myself. you be the judge.

Sat - I was starting to feel better, so I was thinking I might run in the a.m. except - the fam was heading to Traverse City to visit friends who live on Long Lake (awesome fireworks out there!). Meaning? no time to run. ok, let's chalk this up to another "get well" day. works for me (not really, but that's what I tell myself).

Sun - oh my. was I in a treacherous mood. dark and ugly. stressed from the trip and cranky kids and I hadn't run since tues. everyone just go away. don't go away mad...just GO AWAY. Got out for a run in the afternoon THANK GOD - I fear if I hadn't I would have literally lost my mind (this makes me realize how good running/exercise is for my mental health!). Did a ridiculously hard 2.5 mi at 22.26. I think that's a sub-9 min/mi pace. Felt AWESOME. I could have kept going but didn't want to push it since I hadn't run all week practically.

so the final tally: running - 2 +2.5 +2.5 = 7 mi , plus 4 mi mountain biking = 11 mi total.

not horrible, but nowhere near what I ought to be doing.