This past week was week number 6 of base training. It also happened to be my final week of base training before I officially start training for 2016 races. I’m linking up with the Weekly Wrap linkup today, which is hosted by HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin’.

Monday – 4.5 mile easy run on the treadmill in the morning.

Tuesday – Strength training. Ten minutes of abs and my usual squat and lunge circuit. I also spent several hours getting my final batches of Christmas cookies done. That counts, too, because I was worn out by the end and my arms and upper back were sore. It’s hard work icing those cookies!

Wednesday – 14 mile long run. I switched my long run to Wednesday to make sure I was able to get it in before traveling to my dad’s house for Christmas. I decided to do this one on the treadmill. In addition to not being crazy about doing long solo trail runs right now, I had another reason for hitting up ‘Sven’. I don’t like going out on long trail runs on my own at unusual times – like a random Wednesday morning. When it comes to long solo runs, I just feel better on days when more people are out and about (i.e. weekends). So I did this run on the treadmill while watching Christmas movies 🙂

Thursday – Rest day. We had a big family gathering for Christmas Eve.

Friday – Another rest day, unless folding napkins for Christmas dinner counts!

Saturday – 5 mile trail run at Burke Lake with Barry. It was rainy, foggy, and very humid!

A little after the first mile, Barry and I got passed by this guy that proceeded to run a bit in front of us but seemed to be running the same pace. I joked to Barry that maybe we were in a race that we didn’t know about.

Around mile 3 Barry branched off to use the restroom and I didn’t see him again until the end of my run. I continued to gain on that guy that had passed us earlier, until finally catching up with him. But when I went to pass him, he blocked me and sped up. Okay, I guess we are racing. Bring it on 😉

I knew I had a little less than two miles to go, so I just kind of settled into a pace behind the guy again. I started to reel him in, but not enough for him to notice. After hitting mile 4 I noticed we were running at a faster pace. The guy kept looking at his feet, shaking his head a bit, and then picking it up a bit more. I normally run between 11 and 13 minutes per mile on trails, depending on the trail. Up to this point I was averaging right around 10:30 to 10:40 as an easy run (it’s a flat trail). But I couldn’t pass up the opportunity for a race!

My final mile was a 9:40, and I edged the guy out right before I hit 5 miles. I win 🙂 The best way to win a race is when the other person doesn’t know you’re racing. But the second best way is when your competitor doesn’t know where the finish line is!

Sunday – Rest. I had planned to do an easy run in the morning but ended up skipping it. I was worn out from three full days of family time and festivities and my right calf was sore from Saturday’s impromptu trail race. Oops! It feels better this morning, though.

Total Miles: 23.5 miles

I feel like I dropped the ball a bit on my final base training week, but it was the week of Christmas after all. I missed one easy run and one cross training session. This coming week will kick off week 1 of training. What for? You’ll have to come back on Friday for that! I’ve got some exciting news 🙂

Have you ever been involved in an impromptu race? Do you ever “race” others without them knowing it’s a race?
Who else had hot and humid weather this past week?