This was a recovery week for me. What does that mean? It means fewer miles and more rest days – two rest days, to be precise! I tried to time this recovery week on my schedule so it corresponded with a trip to Gettysburg to visit with my husband’s family. I knew I’d be stressed out if I had to find time to fit in 60+ miles with all of the traveling and visiting time. But thankfully fitting in 40 miles was relatively easy and I took full advantage of the rest days. I was also fortunate that this was a recovery week since my children were sick with a virus and my sleep definitely suffered as they were up multiple times each night. Whew. While I loved the (slightly) cooler temps and different views on my runs in Gettysburg, I’m happy to be back in RVA and return to my normal running and gym schedule this week! But before we get to that, here’s how last week went:

Monday: OFF! Tuesday: 10 miles easy + Body Pump Wednesday: 6.6 miles easy Thursday: 7 miles fartleks (best estimate is I kept the 2 min “on” portion in the 6:13-6:30 range) Friday: OFF! Saturday: 12.2 miles battlefield run (7:52 avg pace) Sunday: 5.2 miles recovery

Total miles: 41

The week started off well with a total rest day. I didn’t even go to the gym to do any supplemental stuff! On Tuesday I was able to take advantage of that fact that my husband took a day off from work and wake up super early to head downtown and run with a friend from his new house. It was great to run a different route and I really enjoyed having company on the run. Wednesday I got up early and ran some miles before we left to head up the road to Gettysburg. The run was HOT and HUMID and I think I lost two pounds in sweat! My post-run frozen smoothie was extra delicious on this day. Thursday I was in Gettysburg and decided to just run out and back on the road near my in-laws’ house. Since I’d gotten limited sleep the night before due to the girls being sick, I decided to do some fartleks vs. a tempo. For some reason fartleks are easier for my tired mind (and body) to handle. Even though it’s the same amount of “work” (20 minutes of tempo vs. 10 x 2 min on, 1 min off for fartleks), the fartleks aren’t as mentally daunting for me. I set the workout on my watch and off I went. Unfortunately, my watch is dying and keeps shorting out - once I finished the workout and stopped it, it erased all of my splits. Oh well. I did the workout and it felt sufficiently challenging – and that’s what counts.

I chose Friday as another day off so that my husband could get up early and go play golf with his father. Saturday’s long run got off to a later start (7:45am) due to an extremely rough night with the kiddos. They were 12 times in the middle of the night and I was TIRED on my run on Saturday. But happily it turned out to be a nice scenic run around the battlefields in Gettysburg. I had some cloud cover for most of the run which helped keep me cooler on the hilly course. Sunday’s run was an easy recovery paced jog before the trip back home. I’ve been missing my foam roller this week since we’ve been out of town and I was happy to be reunited with it!

Up Next: Back to Reality with 65 miles

Next week I’m back up in mileage and I’ll be getting back into the gym for some core work and Body Pump (weight training class). I’m hoping to have two weeks of increased mileage (65 and then 70) and then take one more recovery week right before the start of my official training block for Harrisburg.

That was my training week in review – how was your week?