Fall 2013 training - week 4. 12 weeks to go.

I think it's 12 weeks to go to the Scotiabank half. Possibly I'm counting wrong. 

Life was a bit more relaxed this week, as I traded my eldest daughter away for some home grown garlic (one of the less well known Grimm's fairy tales). Amazing how much easier it is to get out the door in the morning with just one kid to wrangle, and the evenings were so pleasant with no one fighting about who touched who first and who got to choose the last show and why is her cookie two crumb widths larger than my cookie?

OK, I didn't really trade her away. My parents brought garlic when they came to pick her up - a week at Granny's is a summer tradition. And the garlic was amazing.

My training roughly follows a three weeks hard/one week easy cycle. This week was the middle week of a three week 'hard' set before a bit of a rest week (although the upcoming rest week includes a 5k race - rest week planning fail!).

Monday: At home TRX routine. Now that I can reliably do chin ups again, I've started working on handstands. It's good to have goals, even if those goals involve me failing repeatedly to get my legs up in the air and the kids laughing hysterically. My home routine is roughly a warm up, pistol squats, chin ups, sprinter starts or lunges, rows, push ups, pikes, oblique twists, hamstring curls, and then assorted planks. Hits all the major muscle groups in 30 minutes or less. One of these days I'll get a kettlebell and switch the whole thing up, but for now this is working for me.

Tuesday: 8k hilly loop. Originally I had been thinking hill repeats, but then it turned out Amy and Patty were willing to join me at 5 am (really? runners be crazy, yo) so we ran a hilly loop instead, tackling some of the more 'fun' hills near my house. I felt really strong on this run, even going up the hills. I should have taken a picture of Patty's outfit since she was rocking it (and I'm not just saying that because I happen to own the same skirt) (also Patty always rocks her outfit, this one I just particularly liked).

Beautiful morning, great company. One of those runs where 8k felt like 3k and I was sad when it was over.

Wednesday: Easy 12k. I was really feeling the pistol squats from Monday night in my glutes, ouch. The 12k+ midweek run is a new addition to my training this cycle (previously I've had trouble finding time to do more than 8k or very occasionally 10k during the week - discovering that there's a 5 o'clock in the morning has helped free up some time!). I'm hoping this will pay off in improved endurance at Scotia. Plus, marathon training looms in January and the longer midweek run will be an important component of that.

Key to the 5 am run is to get all your stuff organized the night before. I realized 3k in that everything I was wearing, including the compression socks and visor, was from Run Girl Run. A little too matchy-matchy, but it's all super comfortable stuff, so meh.

This run featured me being grateful that Canada has a Tim Hortons on every other block, since I had to make a mad dash to use their bathroom. Thanks, Tims! Also encountered a kid on a skateboard who was surrounded by so much pot smoke that I think I may still be high from the fumes. No wonder my post run oatmeal tasted so good. Amusingly, the song iSmoothRun said was my fastest during this run was the cover of 'Higher Ground' by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. So let's call that the song of the week!

Thursday: Tempo time. 2k warm up, 5k at tempo pace, 2k cool down. 5:08, 5:05, 5:05, 5:10, 5:01 BOOM. Awesome run. Felt great through the whole tempo part, other than getting sprayed in the face when one of the stupid Fortino's sprinklers I was dodging suddenly changed direction. I'm sure the early morning commuters waiting for the stoplight to change had a good laugh at that. And there was also the part where a bug flew into my mouth and I choked and spat and swore (running is glamorous!). But the actual running was great. Really looking forward to testing my fitness at Midsummer in a couple of weeks. Which reminds me, I need to start considering a Midsummer Night's Dream themed costume suitable for a 15k run...

TRX routine in the evening for core strength. The usual. Flailed about for a bit attempting to handstand. Did not succeed. I blame the butter chicken/paneer dish I made for dinner, which was delicious but was sitting pretty heavily in my stomach.

Friday: Rest day. Lots of driving to retrieve daughter #1 from her week visiting grandparents (and going to circus camp, the lucky kid).

Saturday: Easy 8k early since we had things to do Saturday morning. Glad I got up for this, the sunrise was incredibly gorgeous. Early morning runs have their rewards.

Amazing sunrise. And a new running shirt I love. The answer to many of life's problems is definitely Go Run.

Sunday: 22k long run. 4k solo and then the rest with Patty & her friend Alison (always great to meet another runner). Long runs are so much better with company. And we were especially glad to have Alison along when we saw an older runner who had tripped and smashed himself up pretty badly on a curb - Alison is a paramedic and was able to ask him the right questions to determine he was OK to get himself home.

Total for the week: 59.4 km run in 5:45:50, plus two decent TRX workouts. Still haven't figured out how to work biking into my training when I'm running 5 days a week. My bike looks so sad and neglected.

Nutrition: this week I tried to be better about eating something post run. Running really kills my appetite* so I often wind up not eating anything for an hour or two, which isn't ideal for recovery, especially for the early morning runs where I didn't eat anything before the run, either. I had some sample post-run recovery drinks stashed away from race kits, so I tried them out this week. Continuing my trend of finding chocolate flavoured athletic nutrition products unspeakably horrible, the Chocolate eMend was disgusting. The orange flavour is palatable enough I could see drinking it regularly. Hammer Recoverite was OK, but the strawberry flavour was not ideal. I'd like to try that one in a different flavour, although I suspect they'll all be pretty protein-powdery tasting.

I've run out of samples, so will stick with chocolate milk post run just because it's easy to make and I always have the ingredients on hand, even though I don't really like chocolate after a run.

*immediately post-run that is. Later in the day, or the day after a long run, though, WATCH OUT. And the Monday after a weekend with a 25k+ run? Hoooooooo boy. Do not get between me and the kitchen.