Weekly Recap: 7 Weeks Until the Boston Marathon

Another colorful sunrise at the end of my run this week;  I would not feel comfortable walking on Lake Calhoun after how warm its been lately, but as you can see, there was someone out there! The warmth was short-lived though; the temperature was back in the 20’s by the end of the week.

On to my weekly recap of training– only 7 short weeks until the Boston Marathon; here’s how it went this week:

Monday: I had the day off of work for President’s Day, so I took my time in the morning before finally heading out for a run around 10 am. I knew that there was rain in the forecast, but it was warm when I left, so I wore shorts and a t-shirt. Wrong move! I got caught in the pouring rain; it felt a whole lot colder when I was drenched…and quite muddy.

2 mile warmup, 8x1200m at a 7:20-7:30 pace with 1 minute recovery, and 2 mile cool down. A “broken 10k” workout, i.e. that pace is around my 10k race pace and I was doing for 6 miles total (about a 10k) with 1 minute breaks. 1 minute is not enough for a full recovery though, it was a hard workout, but I generally stay in the ranges for the 1200’s.  11 miles total at 8:20 min/mile average.

I’ve been having a lot of technical issues with my Garmin 225; this was the second run where it froze up completely and I had to power down and restart it. Fortunately, on this run, I was able to restart the workout and just skip the sets I had already done. Annoying though!

After the run, we had a bunch of errands to run so while we were out, we stopped at Truce to try one of their acai bowls. When we were in Sedona last year, I LOVED the acai bowls at Berry Divine. I was so excited to find a place that makes them in Minneapolis!
Later that evening, I went to a 1 hour barre class at the Barre in Edina, which was great.

Tuesday: 6 mile recovery run at a 9:15 pace…super foggy!

I ran with my friend Christie and we could barely tell where we were even though we knew the route by heart! Kinda creepy. Another 4 miles at an 8:50 pace with Matilda after work for 10 miles on the day.

Wednesday: 8 mile morning run at a 9 min/mile average with a  few friends..in shorts!

And 5.3 miles more after work at a 9 min/mile average for 13.3 miles on the day. Hello Fresh continues to work for us to get healthy meals on the table. Let me know if you want to try it, I can send you a free first box!
Thursday: I was supposed to do 8x400m repeats. I made it through the. 2 mile warmup and 6 of the 8 repeats before my Garmin froze up again. This time when I powered it back on all the history AND the workouts were gone! Ugh. At that point, I had lost motivation to finish the final two 400m repeats so I just ran easy for the rest. 7.5 miles.

I spent a lot of time reading forums about how to fix my issues with the Garmin, but I wasn’t getting anywhere. My computer wouldn’t recognize the device anymore to sync up; I took it back to R.E.I. They have the best customer service and allowed me to return it and pay the difference to upgrade to the Garmin 235 (and pay back any dividends I had earned on the previous purchase). Apparently they will return the faulty Garmin to the company to be refurbished and resold on Amazon.

And so far, I am loving the 235! (DC Rainmaker has a great review of all the features on the Garmin 235 here.) It’s almost like another Apple Watch- I get my text messages on it and Strava messages. It seems to find a satellite signal really quickly. It’s lighter/less clunky than my 225 too. AND its green and black instead of red/black. Dustin’s Garmin is red/black and it was too easy to mix ours up, so I’m happy to have a different color than him.

I’ve been amazed at how easy it was to sync up everything again with this new Garmin- Garmin Connect, Strava, Final Surge.

Friday: All this hype about huge snowstorm and we didn’t get a single flurry! Nonetheless I decided to run my 4 easy miles on the treadmill as it was my turn to bring in “Friday breakfast” at the office and I was baking a french toast bake. So nice to have the treadmill downstairs to be able to bake and run, haha! 4 miles at a 9:15 min/mile.

Saturday: I’ve done two twenty mile long runs so far in this Boston training cycle, but today was a welcome ‘cutback’ in distance but with only 14 miles total, but with 10 miles at Goal Marathon Pace. 3 miles to warm-up, 10 miles between 8-8:15 (my coach gave me a big range this time), 1 mile to cool down. The marathon pace miles actually felt pretty good! I had one slower one in there where I stopped at a support stop that a kind run club member hosted along the route, but overall they were pretty consistent right at 8 min/miles. 14 miles total at an 8:20 min/mile average.

After the run, we had pancakes with a side of Colombian music at Maria’s Cafe in the Phillips neighborhood. Such a cute place!
Of course, Matilda still needs her exercise too, so after brunch, we took her to the airport dog park for some running around:

That evening, Dustin and I went to “Booty & the Beast: A Tinderella Story” at the Brave New Workshop with my college friend. I have been to a handful of their previous shows and this was probably one of their best! I recommend checking it out for a fun evening. We did stay out until 1 am, which is way past this old lady’s bed time, haha! I value my sleep way too much to make that a regular thing….

Sunday: Well, I slept in quite a bit after a late night before finally heading out for a run with Dustin and Matilda. 10 miles in the wind (but sunny!) at an 8:40 min/mile pace. My legs surprisingly felt pretty good after the ‘marathon pace’ miles the day before.

Summary: 70 miles of running and 1 strength class (barre). I think I just have to realize that I’m not able to fit in cross training with so much running (and work). Instead, I’m focusing on eating well and sleeping. Other than Saturday night, I went to bed earlier than usual each night to ensure I was getting enough rest and I took my easy runs easy.

I mentioned in this post about our treadmill room that I was planning to move the wooden medal displays that my dad made into that room; we did that this week:

The display boards work so that you don’t have to cut the ribbons, they are slipped around the back to stay secure. If you’re interested in one, let me know!

I’m proud of my 25 marathon medals. A lot of work went into earning these- Twin Cities, Rock n Roll San Diego, Grand Rapids, Chicago, Twin Cities, Big Sur, Rock n Roll Seattle, Milwaukee Lakefront, Go! St. Louis, St. George, Memphis, Marathon-to-Marathon, Steamtown, Newport, Berlin, Flying Pig, Outer Banks, Tokyo, Grandma’s Marathon, Richmond, Phoenix, London, Grandma’s, Big Cottonwood, and Twin Cities. I’m excited to add number 26 in a few weeks!

I’m linking up as usual with Jess from Jess Runs ATL. Join us!