Towpath Half Marathon Training : Week 5

What a week!  The stars were aligned and I ended up having the best week (by far) of training.  Thankfully, there are only two weeks until race day, so I'm hoping to ride this training high right to the starting line.  This was my final hard week of training, so let's take a look at how it all went down:

Monday

4 miles / 36:40 / 9:09 pace

I started my week off with a little tempo run.  I did a half mile warm up, followed up 3 miles at an 8:00 pace and half mile cool down.  This felt like a comfortably hard pace, which tells me I did it right!  Also- how about that fog over the city?!  Beautiful!

Tuesday

Yoga / 45:00

 I was actually planning on trying out a new class at my gym, but the instructor was out of town so I ended up doing yoga instead.  Hopefully I'll get to try it next week!

Wednesday

Rest Day!

 I started to feel a little sick on Wednesday and decided to take a rest day.  I'm not sure if it's allergies, changing in weather or just a cold, but it wasn't fun!  Lots of sneezing and coughing and pretty much no energy.  I barely made it through work without falling asleep, so I decided to take a day off!

Thursday

3 miles

I still wasn't feeling great and was just going to skip this run as well, but Suzy sent me a text about a Canadian named Terry Fox who ran across the country with only one leg to raise money for cancer.  With that kind of inspiration, how could I stay home with sniffles?   

Friday

3 miles / 26:15 / 8:45 pace

I'm hoping this was our last warm day for a while, because this was a brutal run!  I ran in the evening and did three one-mile hill repeats.  It was close to 90 degrees and humid, so this was a really challenging run!  The downhills saved me!

Core / 30:00

I joined Dan for his core exercises, and threw in a few sets of each exercise along with some Sun Salutations to make a good 30 minute core workout.

Saturday

4 miles / 37:34 / 9:23 pace

Glorious, glorious weather.  Still a bit humid, but I'll take it if the temperature is below 70!  This was also a cloudy morning, so it felt great out.  Went on a nice and easy run to shake out my heavy legs after running hills!

In the evening, Dan surprised me with tickets to the Pirates Game with a Hunter Hayes show afterwards!  Hunter is one of my favorite singers, so I was REALLY excited!  The game was pretty awful but the show was amazing, and we ended up getting home around 1:00!  Party animals!

Sunday

11 miles / 1:41:00 / 9:10 pace

Today was my final long run before the race, and it could not have gone any better (especially considering that I only got 5 1/2 hours of sleep!). The temperature was right around "ideal running weather" (55 degrees), my entire body felt great, and my mind was in the right place.  I also decided to wear my sneakers that are usually for easy runs to see how they would hold up for a long run, and they did great!  I decided that these would be my race shoes. 

I did two laps of North Park, one each direction to mix it up, and listened to a podcast while wearing a jacket for the first lap. Second lap I took off the jacket and turned on music and felt like I was just starting the run! Isn't that the best feeling? My final 6 miles were all under 9:00 (one was 8:32 whoo hoo!).

After I got home, I got to work!  Dan and I are building a shed in our back yard, and today we had my dad's help.  We did a lot of hauling of 80 pound bags of concrete, 50 pound bags of river rock, digging holes, and filling them with cement.  My entire body was tired by the end of the day, but I can't wait for the shed to be ready!


How was your week?  
Anyone else struggle with allergies? I never used to have allergy issues until we moved!
Hunter Hayes fan?