I’m linking up today with HoHo Runs and MissSippiPiddlin’ (whom I failed to mention last week both finished their first full marathons at the Disney World Marathon!!) for their Weekly Wrap link up. This is a recap of week number 3 of 15 for The North Face Endurance Challenge Series 50K.
I switched my schedule around a lot this week to accommodate traveling for work. I moved my hill run to Monday, made Tuesday a rest day, switched an easy run (and skipped strength training!) to Wednesday, rest Thursday, did a little strength training Friday, and then swapped my two long runs on Saturday and Sunday. I didn’t actually do any of my workouts on the planned day. But I wrote the plan so I’m entitled to mix it up (so millennial, so entitled 😉 ).
Monday – 5 mile hill workout with Sven in the morning before driving up to Richmond for work. I covered 350 feet in elevation gain over 4 hill repeats. I normally do more hill repeats, but this was my third day in a row running (with the first of the three days being my 15 miler) and my legs were tired.
Tuesday – Rest. I had considered doing some strength training in my hotel room… and then chose to hang out with coworkers instead.
Wednesday – 3 mile easy run in the evening with Sven the treadmill after driving home from Richmond. I was supposed to do strength training, too, but I was tired and I skipped it.
Thursday – Rest.
Friday – Strength training. 10 minutes of abs and my usual squat/lunge/push up circuit. I was also supposed to run 3 easy miles buuuut I skipped that. Are you seeing a theme??
Saturday – 6 mile run in the morning with Kim at our usual spot. For some reason my ankles and Achilles randomly felt very tight and sore.
Sunday – 10 mile long run in the afternoon at the nearby state park. Barry came too, but ran separate from me. We had snow flurries in the morning and parts of the trail were covered in snow, but for the most part I was running on soft and/or frozen mud.
This run was a tough one for me. Mentally, I just did not feel like being out there at all. I had no desire to be running. But that’s no reason not to get the run done. I was very tempted to cut the run short, but I had already skipped one run this week so I wasn’t going to do that. But boy was it tough to make myself keep going.
I got it done, though. And it really was a pretty day to be out in the woods.
Total Miles: 24 miles
This week was my first weekend with the back to back long runs. It’s not a new concept for me, having followed the Hansons Marathon Method training for Marine Corps in 2014. However, it’s been awhile since I did one of these. My legs felt alright, but it’s going to take me some time to mentally adjust. Unlike Hansons, I had planned to do my longer run on Saturday and my shorter run Sunday, but I swapped them to run with Kim (I had also considered getting my 10 miler done Friday before Saturday’s 6 miler, but that didn’t happen!). The main point of back to backs is to teach yourself how to run on legs that are already tired. I think I’m still accomplishing that no matter which order they’re in. Although, once they get longer I think I’ll aim to do the longer one on Saturday and the shorter one on Sunday.
How do you motivate yourself when mentally you’re just not feeling your workout?
Who else saw some (or a lot of) snow flurries this week?
P.S. I recently did a bunch of updates on my blog (always scary!). I think everything is fine, but please let me know if you run into any issues.
Turkey Runner 
Great job pushing and finishing your run when you didn’t feel like it. Those runs are the toughest but the best way to prepare for race day!
Good point – runs like that are good ‘character building’ for race day.
Great job getting it done! This time of year is hard for me as far as motivation goes. I’ve done some back to back runs in my last marathon training cycle, and they always had the shorter one first, longer one second. Either way, it makes for tired legs!
It’s tough to get out there when it’s so cold, but usually once I’m out there I’m good to go. Hopefully it’s like that for you as well!
Everything looks good on your blog from my perspective. Love the new 50K North Face badge!
We had snow flurries on Tuesday evening and Sunday afternoon. It was so pretty, but the snow melted almost as soon as it hit the ground. We might get something this weekend, though! 🙂
Glad all seems to be well – so scary doing updates (but necessary)! Okay, were you being slightly sarcastic when you said y’all might get some snow this past weekend?? Or were the specific forecasts not available yet when you wrote that?
I’d definitely heard rumblings that we could get a big snow, but all of the models weren’t in by then. I didn’t want to jinx myself by declaring that we were getting snow for sure. 🙂
Sometimes it is really hard to finish a long run so great job in getting in the 10 miles. We have cold weather here in NC, but not cold enough for snow. However, tomorrow the high is just 38 degrees so my work will be in a gym!
I hope you weren’t in the area of NC that got hit with that freezing rain and ice storm this past weekend!
Great job for pushing through and getting that run in! In the years prior to this recent injury, I would race a 5k on Saturday and run long on Sunday. It’s not two long runs back to back, but the maximum effort race combined with the long easy effort run worked very well for me. I hope I can get back to that. I love the fact you wrote your own training plan so you get to change it how you see fit! It is cold here this week (no snow in Dixie) but I’m still resting my knee. Thanks for linking with us Meagan!
I think racing a 5K and then doing a long run the next day would be tougher than doing back to back long runs. That’s awesome that you are looking to get back to doing that again!
I love the changes to your blog! I have a hard time motivating myself to get out and run in the cold and we don’t have snow here. I agree it’s tough to train your legs to keep going when they are already tired. I’m sure you’ll grow stronger in the weeks ahead and it won’t be as challenging to you. This coming from someone who always takes a rest day before and after my long run. Although, I’ve looked at intermediate plans for my next full which all have a semi-long run the day before a long run. I think I may be up for the challenge if it will help me improve my time.
When it comes to marathon training, I definitely felt stronger on race day when I followed a plan that used a moderate run followed by a long run on the weekend than I did with one that just had one long run. But there are so many different factors to consider from one training cycle to the next. I’ll be interested to see how your training goes with the new long run format!
I love the fact that we can change things around on our training plan, because we came up with it! Way to get it done even when you didn’t want too. I think doing that is the best mental test. Sure it’s easy to run when we are motivated and feeling at our best, it’s runs like this that make us what we are!
Definitely good mental training to run when you straight up don’t want to 🙂