How was your President’s Day weekend? Ryan and I spent the weekend in Bend, Oregon and enjoyed a fantastic weekend of running and snowboarding. This past week was the peak week for half marathon training – two hard sharpening workouts and the longest long run of this training cycle.
I’ll share more about our trip to Bend later this week – for now, I’ll just say that it was the perfect vacation for running. Even with the snow and ice, the running there was so much fun – and that’s coming off a beautiful week of running in Seattle!
Monday: 8 mile speed workout
I kicked off the week with a ladder speed workout.
The workout:
2 mile warm up
3K (1.87 miles) at goal half marathon pace
3 minutes easy
2K (1.25 miles) at 10K pace
3 minutes easy
1K (0.62 miles) at 5K pace
1.6 mile cool down
This workout begins deceptively easy and ends with a challenge. Just under 2 miles at half marathon pace is not hard…but busting out 5K pace after just over 3 miles of threshold running is hard. I ran a 7:21/mile pace for the 3K, 7:02/mile for the 2K, and 6:51/mile for the 5K.
Tuesday: 30 minutes Pilates + 3 mile easy run
I slacked again on strength training this week, but at least my Pilates workout provided a challenging total body workout.
I normally don’t run 6 days per week, but during peak training I like to throw in an extra easy day for some added mileage. Plus, it was Valentine’s Day and I wanted to run with Ryan.
Running in the afternoon just feels weird for me. I’ve been a morning runner for over five years now and it’s like my body gets confused when running after lunch. Regardless, it was a fun run! We each leashed up a dog and enjoyed a few very easy miles together.
Wednesday: 9 mile tempo run
I wrote about this run on last week, but this was a workout in which I really had to dig deep. The scheduled workout was 2 x 4 miles, but the wind and my tired legs got the best of me mentally during the first interval.
After a mile warm-up, I ran a 7:35, 7:26, 7:27 for the first interval, but then cut it short after 3 miles – even though the wind wasn’t affecting my pace that much. I reasoned that 2 x 3 miles could be a good workout, but I dug deep for the second interval and ran 7:26, 7:24, 7:20, and 7:21 for the second 4 mile interval. And then I jogged slow for the cool down! This workout was hard, but I’m glad I pushed through – and 7 miles at goal race pace is still a quality workout.
Thursday: 3 mile easy run
An early morning recovery run always feels so good after a hard workout. Ryan and I did a slow and easy 3 mile loop on some gentle hills. While it was still windy, we could smell the ocean air (we live only about 6 miles from the Puget Sound), which was invigorating.
Friday: 14 mile long run
I became so accustomed to hilly long runs during training for CIM that I stuck with them after training. I enjoy the variation, both mental and physical, of rolling hills on a long run, but I also believe in training for the specific demands of a race. The Lake Sammamish Half Marathon is flat, so I wanted to get in a long run to practice running on flat for so long. It’s definitely a different type of long run!
The weather was gorgeous for this run: 40s, sunny, and breezy. I ran an comfortable 8:30-8:40 for the first 11 miles and then progressed at 8:07/mile, 8:00/mile, and 7:55/mile for a strong finish.
Ryan and I drove to Portland on Friday afternoon and spent the evening in downtown Portland. We had dinner at Deschutes Public House and then browsed through Powell’s books. I love unique bookstores and probably could have spend half a day there.
Saturday: Rest day
I squeezed in about 10 minutes of injury prevention/core work before we left from Portland to drive to Bend. We arrived in Bend around noon and spend the day exploring, including a walk through Drake Park.
While walking through downtown Bend, we came across the local running store, FootZone Bend. They had 20% off all shoes and there is no sales tax in Oregon, so I bought a pair of Saucony Peregrines in case we decided to trail run or it snowed. I had been wanting a pair for a while, and the deal was too good to pass up!
Sunday: 4 mile trail run
I was so glad I bought those trail shoes! We woke up to a fresh layer of snow in Bend, but since Ryan and I both had trail shoes, we headed out for a run along the Deschutes River Trail. Running outside will always beat running on a treadmill and while we were significantly slower than our usual easy run pace, we thoroughly enjoyed the scenery and the run itself.
Despite the slower pace, running on the snow was actually really, really fun! The trail shoes made running from wet pavement to snow to icy trail so easy and comfortable.
After brunch, we went to Mt. Bachelor for an afternoon of snowboarding – as did apparently everyone else in Oregon. The slopes were packed for the holiday weekend. Thankfully, we were able to rent equipment despite the crowds. We spent three hours snowboarding and got in some longer green runs than we had previously. The conditions weren’t great – windy with poor visibility at the top, so no photos – but we still enjoyed our time snowboarding.
[Tweet “Last week’s #halfmarathon training and a weekend in Bend! via @thisrunrecipes #inbend #lakesammamishhalf”]
How did you spend the holiday weekend?
How was your week of training?
7 Responses
I had a dream I was snowboarding last night! It was such a great dream. I took this huge jump and while I was in the air, I just kept soaring higher and higher and higher. Okay so, question. I started running in the mornings too, whereas I used to only run in the evenings (for years I’d run after 7 once the kids were in bed). Once in a while now I’ll run in the afternoon and end up with poop issues. Like, even though I only go in the mornings (I poop like clockwork…it’s a beautiful thing), if I run in the afternoon, I’ll have to go again. So if I know that I’m going to run then I have to have a coffee just to force poo before I run. IT IS SO ANNOYING.
I would love to visit Oregon some day! It looks so beautiful there. That stinks that snow boarding wasn’t that great, but I hope the rest of your trip was fun! Great week of training 🙂
My week of training was sadly nonexistent thanks to injury.
It looks like you had a great week. Glad you got a trail run in while you were travelling! A slow run in a new place beats a treadmill run, and hooray for the shoes working out well for it. Both of us had to work so no holiday weekend for us, but we spent the weekend with friends on Sunday and had a double date brunch, so that was pretty fun.
i spent my president’s day in the city only to lose my cell phone! so if you have texted me, I haven’t seen it lol. can you imagine? I never lose anything!! I’m glad you guys had a great time! I can’t run in the afternoon either – It totally feels weird when it’s anything later than even 9 am for me!
I’m so excited to hear about Bend! How dare you hold out on us!!
Sounds like a great week of training! Bend looks like a great place to run. We had really nice weather this weekend so I tried to spend some time outside to take advantage of it!
Looks like a great workout, thanks for sharing, I need some extra motivation this week.