Hello, everyone, and happy Monday! I hope you had a wonderful and relaxing weekend!
It’s finally the last week of January! I feel like it’s been January forever. Christmas and Saint Louis feels like months ago! Not that February has any better weather in northwest Indiana, but at least we’re getting closer to spring.
This has been one of those week where I’ve seriously considered going back to school/changing careers. It’s been difficult trying to find a job in writing or editing, especially because many of the positions want marketing experience. I kick myself like 50 times a week that I didn’t just tack on a marketing major in addition to English. My solution for now: read more on all sorts of topics: running science, nutrition, training strategies, sports psychology, marketing, statistics, business, blogging, etc.
While daydreaming about all the other subjects I could have studied, I tried a couple online quizzes on what I should have studied. Looks like my dream of coaching isn’t that far off track.
On Sunday we went to Barnes & Nobles this week to flip through some books. I’m super excited to read 80/20 Running: Run Stronger and Race Faster By Training Slower soon! I’m admittedly guilty of going to bookstores to choose what books I want and then binge-ordering books off of Amazon. Amazon is like crack for bibliophiles like myself because it just keeps recommending books and I just keep adding them to my wish list.
I never found a great book to read this week; I tried a freelance writing book, but it just didn’t offer valuable information, and then marketing book I had checked out from the library was from 1997 and didn’t even talk about digital anything.
We finally experienced nice weather this week, which meant my total lack of interest in reading just made more time for being outside. Ryan and I took Charlie on a long walk yesterday and spent sometime at our alma mater’s campus (where we also got married). There’s a strange sculpture exhibit set up along campus, which totally freaked Charlie out. He would sneak up on the sculptures, sniff them, jump away, and bark. It was hilarious! In Charlie’s defense, they were creepy sculptures and would scare me if I was running on campus in the darker hours of the morning.
The nice weather also let me get outside for a couple of runs this week. It felt so nice to get fresh air and not be on the treadmill! I did my first double-digit run of 2015 on Friday and it was absolutely amazing, even though it was windy. When there’s no snow or ice, I actually love winter running.
Charlie, however, is not a big fan of winter weather and chose to hide under the covers for most of this week.
Let’s get to my weekly workouts! I had a great week in terms of running, but not so much in terms of strength or flexibility training. I took some time to develop a quick total-body strength routine, so hopefully I can include more strength training next week. Stronger legs, glutes, and core means faster running.
This week’s 10 mile run left me feeling great and excited about training and racing this year. I kept my pace easy and ran a lot faster than I expected! That is the goal of base building; slowly making your easy effort pace faster.
Monday: 7 miles easy outside, 59:19 (8:28/mile pace), followed by stretching and planks
Tuesday: 7 miles treadmill with 10 x 1 min hard, 1 min easy fartleks, 57:20 (8:11/mile average pace); later in the day I did about 20 minutes of strength training with the kettlebell and stability ball
Wednesday: 7 miles easy on the treadmill, 1:02:09 (8:52/mile) with some hills thrown in, and 20 minutes of yoga later
Thursday: 4 miles easy on the treadmill, 36:13 (9:03/mile)
Friday: 10 miles outside, 1:22:19 (8:14/mile) with the last mile at 7:46 pace
Saturday and Sunday were rest days from running.
Total of 35 miles for this week and feeling great!
Now for lots of reading and coffee as it snows outside.
I’ll be linking up later this week with Runladylike‘s week in review link-up! Also, as a disclaimer, this post does contain some Amazon Associate links.
Question of the Day:
Any running or business books you would recommend?
2 Responses
I love reading running books. However, I get very distracted with reading and I will start something and read for like 4 hours in one day and then not get back to it for weeks! Im actually in the middle of a running book now that I haven’t opened in 3 weeks. That 80/20 book sounds interesting!
I’m the same way with fiction (and I was an English major in college!). I’ll start a fiction book, then get distracted and start something also. Right now I have Lord of the Rings, East of Eden, Marathon Woman, and War and Peace all started and never yet finished! I’m excited to read 80/20 and hopefully will review it for the blog!