I swear this week consisted of two things- running and working. Not a lot of free time.
I ran over 60 miles and I worked over 60 hours.
I’m sure there are several of you who regularly work more than 60 hours/week, but this is not the norm for me. Except at certain times, i.e. it’s always busy at quarter end. Woe is me, right? Stop complaining!
…But it did make training more challenging. There wasn’t much time left for strength training. I’m grateful for a husband who steps up and does all the cooking, dog walking, etc. when my work gets busy.
Here’s how I tried to fit it in:
Monday: My only speed workout of the week which was 1,000m repeats: 2 mile warmup, 6x1000m with 1 minute recovery, 2 mile cool down. 8.75 miles total.
The focus this week was miles with only this one speed work-out. Fortunately after a rough week last week, I was happy to have this one workout that felt good. It felt like a breeze!
And what made it feel good? I think it was because I did it at a local track! I had the whole place to myself. I was able to have water during my 1 minute recovery between each 1000m. I think being at the track really kept me focused and in the right mindset. I plan to go there for shorter speed work in the future! I still programmed the workout into my Garmin, but it was basically right on with the track distances. I could have just use a stopwatch for the 1k repeats- its nice to be on a track!
Tuesday: 7 easy miles in the morning. This was the only day this week that I wasn’t at work until at least 8 pm. I was able to leave because I was attending a work-related event, which was a sneak preview of the movie Equity. Read more about it here. Awesome to see a movie about women in this business, and the lead roles were played by women!
Wednesday: 5 easy miles in the morning.
Thursday: 7 miles in the morning with my friend Christie. #sportsbrasquad! We both are embracing the sports bra this summer. (Read this post if you missed the message!)
I had a double this day. With work being busy, I figured the best way to fit in the double would be to RUN home. I drove to work with a bag packed for the next day, left the bag there, and then ran home. (5 miles). 12 miles total for the day.
Friday: Well, since I ran home on Thursday, I had to run BACK to work in the morning! I carried this Nine Trails Patagonia back pack, but I didn’t have to bring that much with me (since I left most everything there the day before), so it was very easy. I added on two more miles to get to my seven in the morning. Splitting up the run commute this way was much more manageable than the time I ran both ways in one day. It helped so much by not having to carry everything with me!
Saturday: 19 mile long run at a 9:15 pace. This long run felt so much better than last Saturday’s super humid and hot long run. Don’t get me wrong, I think it was still 85% humidity but a lower temperature (about 70 degrees at the start) helped. After the run, we had some tasty french toast at People’s Organic in Uptown. People’s Organic wasn’t on my list of Five Best Post-Long Run Brunch locations in Minneapolis, but its definitely a good place to refuel!
Sunday: I registered for a 9 am [solidcore] Arms & Abs class and decided to drive there about an hour early and get in my 5 miles easy around the St. Louis Park area. I really want to fit in a good hour of strength training so this was the most efficient way to do it. I had another 3 easy miles on my schedule for 8 miles total on the day.
Summary: 66 miles, 1 strength class [solidcore]
Speaking of strength training, remember how the Big Cottonwood Marathon has a ton of downhill?
My coach isn’t going to have me do all that much downhill training, because he thinks its really hard on your body and difficult to recover from in order to continue training at a high level, which would be hard when I have a shortened training season. I will run hilly routes, but instead of focused downhill training, he wants me to focus on strengthening my quads via a set strength routine.
The series of exercises includes forward lunges, lateral lunges, prisoner squats, one-legged squats and stork stance squats. He has added this routine to my schedule about 3-4 times a week. It takes me about 20 minutes to complete.
I’m still hoping to add [solidcore] at least once a week (he is aware of this) and Arms & Abs as I can.
Here’s hoping this week will be a little more balanced!
*Any tips for fitting it in when work gets crazy??
Great week!!!!! So happy to see that you had that one great run on Monday and the rest of those runs sounded like very productive runs too! So cool that you could run to work!!!
How cool is that to get to see a movie for work 🙂
Thanks Eri! Yeah, I’m lucky that my office is only 5 miles from my house so a run commute is an option.
The movie event was hosted by a local hedge fund for women in finance. It was actually pretty good!
Sorry I also wanted to ask- your local track- is that a community track or a track at a nearby school (like high school)? I always wondered how to access these tracks. The only nearby track that I know of is at the high school.
Hi Eri- its actually a nearby school. Every school is different- some allow the public to access their tracks when there are no school events. Check into it!
idk if this advice would be useful to you or not, but in my experience, increasing your cadence really helps with the downhill! Much less stress/step on the quads/knee.
Thanks Si! I definitely will do some drills to try to work on my cadence. Good tip!
Great post! Your runcommuting is a great idea. Does your office have a shower or somewhere you can freshen up? How do you handle that?
This time of year is really busy on our farm, too. I do “run commutes” sometimes this time of year, too, where I’ll start or end a run out in the field (we’re harvesting) or I’ll run to some vehicle that’s been left somewhere and drive it home.
So awesome that Dustin is willing and able to help out while you are so busy!!!
Yes my office has locker rooms and showers and NO ONE USES THEM! They are always clean and I have never seen anyone there but me 🙂
I love your ‘run commutes!’ Fun!
Sounds like your week was similar to mine – very busy but good runs in general. How many reps are you doing of each of those exercises? I’m working on increasing my quad strength this training cycle, as well!
For most of the exercises, it’s 3 sets of 10. Nothing too crazy.