Week Ten - Philadelphia Marathon Training

Monday - Rest day - 1 mile run

Tuesday - Intervals (warmup 15 min, run 3 min, recover 90 sec X5)

Wednesday - 30 min easy run

Thursday - 10 min easy pace, 10 min threshold, 10 min easy

Friday - 20 min easy run

Saturday - Rest day - 1 mile run

Sunday - Long Run - Half marathon planned, 12.34 completed

The week started out really rainy. I was stuck on the tread Monday-Wednesday. I'm lucky to have a nice tread in my basement with a quality running deck so I don't have to upend my schedule when circumstances aren't great outside. I also like to catch up on trash TV or Netflix on my treadmill. The nice thing about doing intervals on a treadmill is that it keeps you honest about paces. For Tuesdays intervals, it was easy to hit the 6 mph button and I didn't have to think about how fast or slow I was going. Wednesday morning was not a hard rain, in fact I didn't think it was raining when I peaked outside so I put on my lighted vest but when I stepped outside I saw that it was lightly raining so I went back inside to the tread. Thursday and Friday mornings were beautiful though so I was really happy to be back outside.

I'm generally not a fan of Sunday long runs. I prefer to get them done on Saturday and have a more low-key Sunday. Saturday morning I got up early to help my husband load up the car and make him a lunch ahead of a day away from home. I had a headache and I didn't have plans so there was no reason to be out there in the colder early morning hours. I ended up sleeping on the couch for another hour and a half and I just wasn't feeling it so I decided to switch my long run to Sunday. That was definitely the right choice. The first 9-10ish miles felt nearly effortless and then I was just kind of over it to be honest. This was supposed to be a time trial and the training plan suggested it be a race. I couldn't find a race that was within a reasonable distance that I was interested in doing and I wasn't paying the cost of a last minute race entry for a race I wasn't excited about. I've done a lot of faster long training runs that the plan didn't call for so this week was just a long run. I was back home at 12.34 miles and I could have circled to get to 13.1 but I wasn't feeling it and it just wasn't worth it. Plodding for another .75 mile was not going to be a benefit so I called it a day and came back inside for a nice shower and some leftover spaghetti squash.

My favorite part of today's route is going up this long steep hill which goes around a bend....

To reveal one of the prettiest views in the county. It's most beautiful in the snow and when everything is lush and green.