Except I didn't.
Even though I did.
Confused? I was.
One of the annoying things about the Roman Calendar is that it's not base-10. This whole 7-day week, 4-ish week month, 30-ish day month, 365-ish day year.... it's not easy for some of us to keep track of. It's a cruel trick that we evolved to having 10 fingers insead of something more useful like 7 or 30-ish or 365-ish. (I'll let you settle on that mental picture for a minute. Kinda gross, huh?)
My problem on this occasion was that the end of the month of March overlaps a LOT with the beginning of April. How this kicked me in the butt this time around is that I gave the same week TWO different training weeks.
Thank goodness my much-better-at-counting-than-me BRF alerted me to my mistake. Of course, she alerted me of it way back on December 20th or so. I felt sorry for her for being confused about the schedule. After all, I had literally hand-written out every.single.workout. No small commitment. I knew I had to done correctly. Poor Lauren. She was mistaken, but I knew she'd figure it out.
Friday, I got a text from her suggesting I double check my 'math'. Whaddayaknow? She was right. And I was wrong. And therefore, I was a week 'behind' in training.
This barely even registered on my things-to-worry-about scale, since I spent the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas running every.single.day. But, it's just more of a pain the ass. And in the immediate sense, it meant I needed to run 15 miles on Saturday instead of 14, with the mid-5 at race pace. (We are shooting to run a 3:45 so this means 8:35/mile). Something about trying to make those paces was a bit of a big deal. (I am doing the Train Like a Mother marathon "Own It" plan.)
I shouldn't have worried though. Cuz there was just no bleeding way I was going to make those paces on Saturday. It was 10 degrees when I started out at 6AM. I was wearing about 467 layers and quite honestly, I never got overly warm. Every winter I have to embrace (and remember) that it's just not feasible to run your 'real' paces in such cold weather. I honestly don't know if it's the extra layers of clothing or the physics of moving your body through frigid temps, but even when I was on the flattest part of the run - the part where I was meant to be doing 8:35s - I could not make my body move any faster. My paces for 5-10 were 9:01, 8:50, 9:00, 8:32, and 8:14. I think the 8:14 was fairly desperate - I was coming up on the public rest room where I knew I could take a small break, get a teeny bit warmed up, and slug my gels and water in relative comfort. And pee, of course. Always, always, I can pee.
I was VERY happy to see the end of that run and spent a bit the morning grumbling at myself for my paces... but not long. One of the benefits of being on the the dark side of 40 is realizing that this is Small Stuff and I can still call the run a success. S'all good.
Which brings us to the coming week. It's supposed to get OH-so-COLD this week. In fact, Thursday we are forecast for a low of 3 and a high of 5. (And that's an upgrade from a low of -1 and a high of 3....) So that will mean 5,893 layers for that scheduled 6-7 miler...which I'll have to head out for before 5AM... Oh, gawd I could talk myself out of this and it's still 5 days away!
Finally, here's a little resolution/goal setting I did as part of the Another Mother Runner community. I don't know if I'll get to these goals (especially the one about my kids) but it's worth the public pronouncement, in case that motivates me.
My problem on this occasion was that the end of the month of March overlaps a LOT with the beginning of April. How this kicked me in the butt this time around is that I gave the same week TWO different training weeks.
Thank goodness my much-better-at-counting-than-me BRF alerted me to my mistake. Of course, she alerted me of it way back on December 20th or so. I felt sorry for her for being confused about the schedule. After all, I had literally hand-written out every.single.workout. No small commitment. I knew I had to done correctly. Poor Lauren. She was mistaken, but I knew she'd figure it out.
Friday, I got a text from her suggesting I double check my 'math'. Whaddayaknow? She was right. And I was wrong. And therefore, I was a week 'behind' in training.
 |
| My low-tech, very messy training schedule. Gah... |
This barely even registered on my things-to-worry-about scale, since I spent the days between Thanksgiving and Christmas running every.single.day. But, it's just more of a pain the ass. And in the immediate sense, it meant I needed to run 15 miles on Saturday instead of 14, with the mid-5 at race pace. (We are shooting to run a 3:45 so this means 8:35/mile). Something about trying to make those paces was a bit of a big deal. (I am doing the Train Like a Mother marathon "Own It" plan.)
I shouldn't have worried though. Cuz there was just no bleeding way I was going to make those paces on Saturday. It was 10 degrees when I started out at 6AM. I was wearing about 467 layers and quite honestly, I never got overly warm. Every winter I have to embrace (and remember) that it's just not feasible to run your 'real' paces in such cold weather. I honestly don't know if it's the extra layers of clothing or the physics of moving your body through frigid temps, but even when I was on the flattest part of the run - the part where I was meant to be doing 8:35s - I could not make my body move any faster. My paces for 5-10 were 9:01, 8:50, 9:00, 8:32, and 8:14. I think the 8:14 was fairly desperate - I was coming up on the public rest room where I knew I could take a small break, get a teeny bit warmed up, and slug my gels and water in relative comfort. And pee, of course. Always, always, I can pee.
 |
| If you can't beat it, take a selfie with it. Truly beautiful scene. |
Which brings us to the coming week. It's supposed to get OH-so-COLD this week. In fact, Thursday we are forecast for a low of 3 and a high of 5. (And that's an upgrade from a low of -1 and a high of 3....) So that will mean 5,893 layers for that scheduled 6-7 miler...which I'll have to head out for before 5AM... Oh, gawd I could talk myself out of this and it's still 5 days away!
Finally, here's a little resolution/goal setting I did as part of the Another Mother Runner community. I don't know if I'll get to these goals (especially the one about my kids) but it's worth the public pronouncement, in case that motivates me.
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