2nd trimester training recap

Week 12 (63.2 miles, no days off): 10 miles with 2 mile threshold, then 8x200m fast: averaged 7:04 for the 2 miles. Two other workouts for the week were 8×15 sec hill sprints inside a 9 miler and a long run of 15 miles.

Week 13 (58.8 miles, no days off): Nate left for a continuing education course in Florida mid-week. I joined him Friday evening. Pretty darn nice to go from a windchill of -15 to highs in the 60-70s! I did a 10k race in Key Biscayne while I was there, finishing 2nd in 44:54. My form has changed so much and although I can recognize that I’m sitting back, using my quads too much (c’mon glutes!), and not springing forward, I can’t make any changes to how I’m running. Argh – but all in good time. Just hope I’m not creating bad habits.

Week 14 (44.9 miles, 2 days off): Tried to do a long run of 16 miles, but mis-budgeted my time. Not only is my easy pace is slower now (8:30-45) but I also need time for multiple bathroom stops. Only made it 14.5 miles before having to stop to get the girls. 

Week 15: (51.6 miles, 1 day off): 3×1 mile hard, averaged 6:50s. That’s all the faster I can go now. Then 6×30 sec surges, about 6-6:15 pace Notes from my log: Overall, AWESOME workout. I love quality put into these longer-ish workouts, they give me something to look forward to & help the time to go by!

I had the opportunity to lift at the Training Haus with Meghan, my coach, and other Team USA MN runners. It was far and away the BEST strength session I have done in a while. A strength coach writes a custom plan for them and then monitors the lift. The first 5 minutes is spent on dynamic warm-up exercises and plyos. I couldn’t do many of them! I was stuck to the ground, no pop, no spring. Then during the lift I worked with the coach on activating my glutes and core on every move, even if it was an arm or shoulder movement. SO FUN! 

It’s expensive, but I am almost certain I will add it into my schedule once I’m not pregnant. As I get older, this kind of work is more and more important. Hoping I can do my PT there as well as then I’d only have to make the 1:30 round trip drive once!

Week 16: (44.5 miles, 2 days off): Two interesting training log entries:

1-1-2020: 8 miles with 8×3 mins at 5k effort, 2 min recovery. Log entry: Wasn’t feeling great last night and then through the morning, but told myself to just try running. Seemed to feel less sick to my stomach as I went so started harder sections around mile 5 – only got 5×3 mins in, but I’m proud of that! About 7 min mile pace. Wow – I feel like a totally different person when running now! Just happy to be truckin’ along, but will say it was more fun to have the world go by a little faster around me!

1-3-2020: 15 miles w/ last 7.5 miles alternating 1 mile faster, 1 mile easy. Log entry: 7:30-45 for on miles. Love having something to look forward to during long runs. Otherwise I think they would seem overwhelmingly long. Stopped at 12.9 to find a bathroom and actually didn’t find one in time so peed my pants. So I just ran home.

Week 17: (48.3 miles, 1 day off): Easy pace is more like 9:00 pace now.

Week 18: (48.2 miles, 2 days off): A particularly fun workout log entry: Bryce convinced me to run to St Olaf with him today roads are slick under the new snow. He then convinced me to do 800s on their indoor track. So thankful for him, this was so fun! 3:20, 3:16, 3:10, 3:06, 2:59, 3:01. 2×200 in 45/48 before the 8s, oops! But then got into a groove. Felt more like myself! And still sub 3! 🙂

Long run of 14 miles where I ran to my dentist appointment in Faribault. Probably the last time I’ll be able to do that in a while.

Week 19: (29.8 miles, 3 days off): Another indoor track workout as last week’s was so much fun! With Bryce again,15×200 in sets of 5 with 100m recovery between each 200, 200m recovery between each sets. I tried to move! Times were around 43s with my last one 39.3 (YES!).

Week 20: (50 miles, 2 days off): Through the end of this week: 1,072.5 miles! We bought a treadmill, it was installed this week.

Week 21: (45.1 miles, 2 days off): Our old treadmill is too junky to be worth selling, so we left it next to the new one. Saturday was really snowy so Nate and I both did a run on a treadmill. The girls amused themselves in the workout room, doing jumping jacks and practicing gymnastics moves on their bar. Anna told us at one point while we were running side by side, “You should hold hands”. So we did, HAHA. It’s actually pretty darn nice to have side-by-side treadmills!

Week 22: (55.2 miles, 1 day off): 4x800m workout, still can average 3:20s! Thanks, Ben, for the coaching along the way!

Week 23: (21.9 miles, 3 days off): Rough, rough week. First rough run was after 12″ of fresh new snow. Not surprised at how hard this was as I was trying to run inside tire tracks, but even with that I was running through deep snow w/ ice underneath. Not just that, but I was really out of breath and my heart rate seemed to race at certain points. My HR monitor didn’t pick it up so maybe it wasn’t actually racing… just felt like it? Odd. This was the first run I’ve had in a really, really long time that was just NOT FUN at all. 

Later that week, I tried to do my long run from the cabin in route to Birkie packet pick-up (Nate and the girls would pick me up along the way), but wow… terrible day. Again, I felt like my heart was racing when I started running? I decided to run a mile, then walk a minute. Made it 7 miles. Uf. I felt sorry for myself on the way to the cabin and shed a few tears… I so miss being able to push myself. I hoped this wasn’t the end of my running, but as poorly as this week had gone, I thought it could be. 

Bright spot of the weekend: the Barnebirkie, where both the girls skied, and the Birkie where Nate finished top 100 again! The picture below cracks me up. Anna is the last Barnebirkie finisher, by a lot. She lost almost all motivation until we could see the finish line. Then she motored towards it and when she crossed the line, held her hands up high (and stuck out her tongue in concentration). She was “interviewed” at the finish line. How old are you?, they asked. “Free” (saying three is still hit-or-miss with her). Too precious.

Oh, and yes, Monkey skis with us. Inside my jacket. Sometimes inside of Anna’s. Anna explains, “The whole family skis. Even Monkey”. 

Week 24: 45.3 miles, 1 day off): I rallied back! Eased back into mileage and ran on feel. I also added my first bike workout at the YMCA. I have never really done any biking and I’m excited to try to “learn” how. I’m pretty terrible at it as my “hard” sections are at about level 2 and really low RPM. Gotta start somewhere, right?

So very happy to be back and able to run without the weird symptoms of last week!!

Week 25: (46.1 miles, 1 day off): Start of the countdown mileage! Long run of 15 miles to celebrate 15 weeks to go. I took walk breaks after mile 11. Proud to be able to log this kind of mileage this late in the pregnancy!

Second bike workout at the Y. Workout was a 3min on-2min cruze fartlek, the up tempo should be at a resistance that is hard enough that you can only cycle 70-90 rpm and the Cruze at 115-120 rpm. My log entry: I am a novice biker for sure! I could only do 90 RPM at level one for the 3 minutes then went down to 70ish for the 2 min cruise! HA! I almost hopped over to the elliptical because I know I can rock out workouts on that, but really do want to learn how to bike so told myself to keep trying and that week by week it will get easier. It will, right?!?

Week 26: (49 miles, 1 day off): To knock out a 8 mile run on the weekend, Nate and I “ran” our errands. First stop: Menards to get supplies for an incubator (going to see if we can hatch fertilized eggs!), then to target to pick up our drive-up order. The Target employee told us we were the first to ever use the drive-up using a stroller, ha

Long run of 14 miles, stopped to walk for a minute after every mile after mile 8.

 

Week 27: (31 miles, 2 days off, 1 day XT): COVID-19 is starting to get scary. For my long run of 13 miles I ran from Bethel to my house (4 miles), then picked up Nate for the last 9 miles. We had lots to talk about as he was furloughed from work. Yikes! Good thing that means he can file for unemployment (I guess?)? Never thought that would be the case – to have my dentist husband at home unemployed! 🙁

Luckily, we are in a good position to weather this for a while. We will likely unenroll the girls at the Montessori to 1) save the tuition (since Nate will be home), and 2) to reduce their risk of getting it. Things will look a lot different at our house!

 

Cross training workout now done on an elliptical as I won’t be going to the Y until things are safer. Bummer — I was really hoping to have to do these on a bike! 🙁

Week 28: (30.5 miles, 2 days off due to a scratchy throat):  

 

 

Total mileage through 2nd Trimester: 1,396.6. (Compared to Anna’s pregnancy where at this point I had logged 1668.6 miles). I’m really proud of how much I’ve been able to keep up with my training. Onto the last trimester!