Week 14 of my Chicago Marathon Training has come and gone. It was a relaxing week for me since I had a one week break between my MBA courses. This meant that I was finally able to do some laundry, pick up the mess that follows me everywhere I go around the house and catch up with my husband and lady friends.
Here’s how my training went:
Tuesday Monday / Track Nice Leisurely Run
Some running friends were meeting at 7 AM on Labor Day for a 7-mile run. I knew that most of my other running friends were coming back from trips and rated their chances of bailing on track as very high. I decided to wake up early on my holiday so that I wouldn’t have to run track by myself the next day. I hate running track by myself.
I am definitely a vampire running. Running in daylight was killer. I quickly began to curse our late 7 AM start time.
And I forgot my watch, so I ran clueless to time and mileage. That part was lovely!
Also, I made the right decision. No one ended up running track on Tuesday morning. Lonely runner crisis averted.
Thursday / 9 miles 7 miles
I was scheduled to run 9 miles, but since I ran 7 miles on Monday, I decided to take it easy with just 7 miles on Thursday morning. Since we were running hills on Saturday, we stuck to flat lands on our run.
- Distance: 7 mi
- Time: 1:27:25
- Avg Pace: 12.29/mi
Saturday / Long Run (12 miles) (10 miles)
If the hills had eyes, they would have witnessed many runners on Saturday.
Our group drove out to Apopka for some “hill training.” I’ve tried to avoid hill training at all costs this training session because I think too many hills strain my IT band. However, one of our team members had to put water out in Apopka so we were guilted into supporting her. Otherwise she would have to run hills all by her lonesome. I agreed to run, but decided to cut my mileage by a couple of miles. In my eyes, 12 regular miles equals 10 hilly miles. 🙂
I arrived about 10 minutes early to our meeting spot. Apparently the further from home we run, the closer to on time I get. I quickly noticed I was the only one from our group there. I was deep in thoughts considering how I excited I would be to sleep in my car when some other group members arrived to join the run. Boo. No car sleeping.
A few minutes later the group was there and we set out for our run. Apopka seemed unusually dark and there was a fog rolling over the hills. We couldn’t see much on our first big loop.
However, on our second loop it was lighter out and the fog had lifted. Now I could clearly see the top of that hill I was running on! The top seemed so far away. I think I liked running in the darkness and fog better.
Before we knew it, 10 miles were done. We walked it back a mile for a nice cool down.
- Distance: 10.10 mi
- Time: 02:17:24
- Avg Pace: 13:36/mi
Afterwards I met some friends for breakfast and then headed to Starbucks for my cheat treat: my first pumpkin spice latte of the season! I made it a little less horrible for me by ordering it with skim milk and just one pump of pumpkin spice syrup (anything more than that is just too sweet now). It was delicious.
I enjoyed a lazy weekend with my husband. Today I start class again and I’m sure life will be a whirlwind until I leave for Chicago in just over a month from now. I’m starting to get excited about the marathon!
I Sweat Pretty 
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