What a feeling! What great workouts!

Wow, last week was quite the week!  There was a lot of run volume, plus I also found the time for a little cross training.

Monday is usually a rest day for me, but I opted to make it a legs off day and do a couple of upper body Nike Training Club strength routines.  I figured I might as well make use of my lunch hour!  It has been a long time since I’ve done any kind of strength workout and my arms were shaking by the end of it.

On Tuesday I had some speed work to do.  It was a fartlek pyramid, with intervals of 5/4/3/2/1 minutes.  I had set myself some aggressive pacing goals so I was a little nervous!  Luckily the snow was starting to melt and we were above zero so that meant I didn’t have to be quite as bundled up as I was on my runs last week.  Time to show a little ankle!

The sun was out and it was an all around fairly nice day for a run.  I managed to execute my pacing plans too!

Tuesday night I figured it was time to get reacquainted with an old friend.

My spin studio is all set up and I finally had my trainer tire put on my bike.  Spinning is a great way to build leg strength without a bunch of impact so I know this is good for me!  I don’t think my brain and my heart were quite ready for trainer rides until now though.  I found an old spin workout that was about an hour long that involved a lot of low cadence with sit/stand work.  My legs were feeling a little tired after those intervals at lunch but I pushed through.

It is so nice to not be spinning in a garage anymore!  FYI…my old spin space…

I even had company on the workout.  I chose to believe that Peat was cheering me on in his own, silent way.

Wednesday was a super easy recovery run…but winter was back for another appearance!  Gotta love living in Calgary where the weather can change so quickly.  And only in this town will you spot a guy bundled up complete with face mask running behind a guy wearing shorts.

Thursday was a bit of a longer run so I opted to commute home as it felt like the best way to fit in my workout.  It gets dark so early these days that I was thankful I brought my reflective vest and headlamp.  Unfortunately the batteries in my headlamp were starting to die so while my headlamp made me visible to oncoming traffic the pathway wasn’t very well lit.  I detoured home, got some fresh batteries and went back out there to finish off my run.  It is amazing the difference some fresh batteries in your headlamp can make!

This weekend was a big weekend of running.  I had a 2.5 hour run Saturday morning, hill repeats Saturday afternoon, then an additional 1:15 on Sunday.  My long run on Saturday went really well!  My legs felt peppy and had some nice speed to them.  The wind on the last hour of my run was tough but I kept pushing through.  As soon as I got home from my long run I ate and had a nice long nap so I’d be ready to tackle the rest of my Saturday.  The hill repeats were a little rough to begin with but once I started to concentrate on form (driving my knees up and my elbows back) it felt a lot better than shuffling up the hill.  I then hurried home, showered and changed, and met my friend Debbie for sushi and Flashdance.

Thank goodness for boots that can hide compression socks!

For Sunday’s run my coach was expecting it would likely be a slow one.  I just focused on keeping the pace easy.  It was a bonus that the wind was not nearly as bad as the day before!

Whew…I got in almost 10.5 hours of activity this week, including 24.2 miles over three runs this weekend.  It was a big week, my legs were tired but the workouts all felt great!

Tell me about your week.  Any really tough workouts that you were able to push through?