Memphis Marathon Training: Week 3

Week 3 was rough. The exhaustion of full marathon training hit me hard, and all I wanted to do was sleep and whine about how tired I was. I'm still exhausted, but I got some much needed encouragement from my awesome runner friends, so I'm doing OK now. I also went back through my blog archives and remembered that I posted about miserable exhaustion in week 3 of half marathon training, and it eventually got better, so I have hope that I'll get used to this training plan too.

Monday
Speed Rest
I felt terrible all day and just didn't have the energy to run. Not sure if was the raging pollen levels sending my allergies over the edge, or just exhaustion bringing on a cold. Either way, I felt like I was fighting off getting sick all week.

Tuesday
Cross Train Speed
Skipped a bike ride to get my speed workout done. I felt pretty good and ran at the local track, but my legs were sluggish and I never came close to the paces I was supposed to run. It was a ladder workout of 1200, 1000, 800, 600, 400 and 200 meters, with 200 meter rest intervals between each one. I even used a fancy pace chart.

4.71 miles/Splits: 9:34, 9:35, 9:30, 9:26, 9:20, 8:51

Wednesday
Tempo 7 Tempo 5
Trea was fighting allergies or a cold on Wednesday, so he wasn't able to run with me. I've never attempted more than 5 miles by myself, but I thought I would be fine. Unfortunately, I still haven't learned that I'm not conditioned to run hard two days in a row. I never could find my groove and took way too many walk breaks. It got dark while I was out and I didn't feel comfortable running in the dark alone, not because I felt unsafe, but because there was no one to run ahead and break through the spiderwebs hanging from the trees. I was so mad at myself for cutting my run short by 2 miles, but I was hot and tired and just wanted to go home. I calmed down by kicking off my shoes and walking barefoot through the splash park. Hardly anyone else was out, and it was so peaceful. The cold concrete felt amazing on my tired, hot feet. I could have laid down in the middle of the jets and taken a nap.

5 miles/57:00/11:24 avg. pace

Thursday
Cross Train Rest
My new bike spent another day in the garage, and I spent another evening completely exhausted on the couch.

Friday
Rest

Saturday
10 long
My first double digit run since the Bentonville Half Marathon in April! I ran with a group again, and that is seriously the way to go with longer runs. We kept about the same easy pace as last week and didn't really take any walk breaks. We were all hoping that crosswalks would take longer to change and give us time to stretch a bit, but we were able to cruise right through most intersections. We powered through and had a great run. I spent the rest of the day with my feet up, in compression calf sleeves and ice on my knees!

10.02 miles/1:56:07/11:35 avg. pace

Total mileage for the week: 19.73

13 weeks till Memphis!