Monday, 11/25 → Rest
Tuesday, 11/26 → Rest
Wednesday, 11/27 → 6 mile run (treadmill) w/ .3 mile cool down walk + phase 2 lift + stretch & foam roll
Thursday, 11/28 → Franklin Turkey Trot - 1 mile warm up + 3.1 mile run
Friday, 11/29 → 4 mile run (treadmill) w/ 1.45 mile walk + phase 2 lift + stretch
Saturday, 11/30 → Rest
Sunday, 12/1 → Happy Holidays Half Merrython - 13.25 mile run
Sunday, 12/1 → Happy Holidays Half Merrython - 13.25 mile run
100 miles in November Update: 100/100 miles completed! 🎉
Another week of training in the books! This past week was a lot of fun because I got to run not one but TWO races, and I got to start trying out the second phase in my strength training. I love getting to change things up so I'm not getting bored in my training! I'm still seeing lots of rapid improvement from the way I've been training which is super encouraging and is keeping me motivated to keep going. I'm also happy to report that I officially hit 100 miles in November! I was scheduled for 4 miles on Friday which only put me 1.45 miles off the 100, so I decided to walk the rest of the mileage to finish up a day early. I will say that this challenge definitely kept me motivated to keep putting in the miles. Shout out to Angie for putting on this challenge!
As I mentioned, I participated in two races last week. Let's start with Thursday when I ran my local Turkey Trot. It was raining (per usual anytime I'm racing) but I always love starting off Thanksgiving with something active to do in the morning and it was less than 2 miles from my house, so it was easy to stay motivated. This race was to benefit the local food pantry and the cool thing about this race is that you can opt to either pay an entry fee ($25) or donate 25 non-perishable food items. It looks like through all of the participants, they were able to raise $20,000 and collect 2,000 pounds of non-perishable food items! So awesome!
Being someone who is used to running longer distance races, which usually consist of folks who have trained before and know road race etiquette, I had to remind myself that runners from all levels of experience participate in turkey trots. As soon as the race began I was caught behind multiple groups of walkers who were about 5-across, and while I was frustrated for a split second, I had to remind myself that this was for FUN 😂 and that everyone else was there for fun as well. So I dodged my way around folks until I was able to have some space to run at the pace I wanted to.
Since it was a shorter run, I really tried to push myself hard for speed. I definitely felt the burn, but I moved at a really fast clip for most of the race! The first half mile of the race was a downhill and the last half mile was an uphill, so my splits look insane but I managed to finish in under 29 minutes (which I haven't been able to do in YEARS), and I even placed in the top 20 of my age group! Overall really happy with how I ran on Thursday!!! 😊
A little soggy but happy!
I don't think I've mentioned what I got up to for the rest of the day on Thanksgiving yet, but as usual I spent it with Brett and his family. It's nice that we live so close now, since we got to spend most of the morning post-race relaxing at home before heading over to the chaos! It's always good to chat and catch up with everyone. I also spent a lot of time with Danny and Hailey playing the Switch which was a blast. I was definitely tuckered out by the end of the night, but it was a very successful Turkey Day!
🦃🦃🦃
Kicking off the holiday season right on the first of December was the Happy Holidays Half Merrython up in Gloucester! Cassie and I decided to run this race for our free entry after volunteering at the Ocean View Half Marathon last month. This is the third time I've run this race and it's been the same beautiful-yet-challenging course as it has been every year. This race is literally ALL HILLS with very, very few flat stretches to speak of. I mean, just check out the elevation chart from my watch yesterday 😭
The first half of the race felt really great and I was moving along pretty quickly. I would say around mile 8 my legs started to feel pretty trashed from all of the hills and my pace started to slow way down. There were a few instances where I did find myself walking up hills (because honestly I was able to move my legs faster by walking - don't you love when that happens? 😂) but I tried to keep myself running as much as possible. One of my biggest goals in my training is getting myself to stop relying on walking intervals and I would probably have been able to run this entire race if it wasn't so insanely hilly. BUT either way, I'm actually very happy with my time and my overall pace, and that I got to run another race with Cassie!
All smiles... of course this was BEFORE the race 😂
It has been a WHILE since I've run under a 2:20 half marathon. I'm not even sure when the last time I was able to do that was! Because I was so excited about my time, I wanted to compare my 2:19:44 finish (2:19:43 chip time 😉) with my time from my last half marathon (the John & Jessie Kelley Half Marathon in August 2019) and with my time from when I ran this course last year. I have to say, being almost 12 minutes faster than the last time I ran the Half Merrython and nearly 27 minutes fast from my last half feels REALLY good! PLUS (I just looked this up) I actually set a course PR with my time from yesterday. I ran the Half Merrython for the first time in 2013 and ran a 2:30:11, so my 29 year-old self beat my 23 year-old self! LOTS to be proud of for sure!!! 😊
This week is back to the grind with training and lifting. I've been getting some pretty brutal runner's knee lately which has woken me up in the middle of the night multiple times 😫 so I'm also going to be trying to foam roll every day to alleviate that pain. I'm notoriously bad about making time to foam roll (whattup laziness) but I really want to make sure I'm recovering appropriately so I can continue to push myself and see progress in my workouts!
I'm also in my last week of volleyball for the fall. Our team made the playoffs which is super exciting, though I'm not sure if we'll be making it too far since we're the bottom seed. We'll see though! I've been really enjoying myself with being on a volleyball team, and I'm thinking I'm going to sign up for another session! It's great to be participating in a team sport in addition to the very solo and sometimes isolating sport of distance running. 😂
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