Training Again

It's been a while since I could say this, but I'm officially training for a race again! I have two races coming up- a 15k in February, and a 10 miler in April. I'm really excited for both of them because the races seem really fun, and the distance is perfect for me. 

I started following the Hal Higdon Intermediate plan a few weeks ago, and I just completed week 3. Just like I used to do, I'll be recapping my training week and letting you all know how everything's going (and also keeping myself accountable to keep going!).  Here's how this week went-

Monday

3 mile Run/Walk

I got Dan to run with me this morning! We went out first thing in the morning and did a loop around our lake. I finished up with a mile solo on the trails.

Tuesday

10.5 mile Bike Ride

It was a gorgeous day out, so we headed out for a longer bike ride. It's been a while since I've ridden outside and I missed it so much! I also finally oiled my bike chains and it made such a difference- I need to learn more bike maintenance so I can do some longer bike rides next year but this was super easy and effective.

1 hour Kayak

I wanted to stay outside, so we ended up going to Jordan Lake after the bike ride. It was pretty windy and the water was choppy, but I still loved being out there (especially in December!).

Wednesday

4 mile Run

It was such a warm and humid evening at Run Club, and all of us were struggling a lot! We did the normal winter route with a few extensions added on for the extra mile. I always look forward to running with my friends here- the miles always fly by even if we're all struggling along the way like today.

Thursday

5x800 plus warmup and cool down

I met up with my friend Kaile for today's run. She's a very speedy runner and agreed to pace me for my speed workouts during training! The plan I'm following switches between tempo runs and 800 repeats every other week, and this was my first time doing repeats in quite a while. We ran on the Tobacco Trail which is a great place for speed workouts since it's a straight trail with minimal elevation gain. I could really feel every tiny hill today- it was really tough for me but we got through it! My goal was 7:45 pace, and we ended up hitting that for 3 of the 5 (the other two were on a slightly uphill portion and my body felt like it could not go any faster!)

Friday

6 mile Run

Met up with a few friends to go for a run before our yoga class (one of the friends - Erica - is the instructor!). She teaches an outdoor yoga class every Friday morning at the Art Museum and we usually run beforehand. Luckily today's class was later in the day since it's New Year's Eve so I didn't have to run in the dark or at the crack of dawn. The run was fun!

75 min Yoga

We had a great group for class and it was a great way to end the year. We did some fun balancing flows followed by lots of stretching and an extra long savasana. 

Saturday

9 mile Run

Somehow Erica convinced me to run first thing on New Years Day (which is fine since I don't stay up till midnight anyway). We met up with another friend at Fleet Feet, which was hosting an Inspiration Run to kick off 2022. My plan was to run 8 miles but we ended up taking a nice tour of downtown Raleigh and had a bonus mile at the end. It was such a humid and warm morning that I'm really happy I had friends to run with, otherwise I would have quit the run early. It was brutal out there!

Sunday

Recovery Day

Relaxed most of the day with just an easy walk with Selma and a yoga class. Like the past few years, Dan and I are doing Yoga with Adriene's 30 Days of Yoga challenge which kicked off today. Excited to get back into daily yoga!