Pretty sure I had to look back at my last blog post to remind myself what week we were on… oops.
It’s been a few weeks because a massive head cold hit the box household. Both Justin and I tried to push through our week of workouts only to find that we would make ourselves worse. Ultimately, we just felt miserable and wanted to rest.
So, we gave into ourselves and just took a few days off.
Rest is truly the best medicine (along with a little bit of Dayquil and some vitamin C).
By week 3 of this off and on, we were back to feeling normal and ready to get back to it! HURRAY!
It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, at the gym, and I love it!!!
Sunday: Thanksgiving preview because all we did was REST.
This year, we spent Thanksgiving with Justin’s family. We had some incredibly delicious food and got some early Christmas shopping done!
We even got our Christmas card photo shoot pictures. Here are a few of my all time favorites!
Sunday we ultimately took a break from anything athletic and it was glorious. We got home from Thanksgiving and it felt like I was hit head on by the struggle bus. We watched the Hallmark channel and decorated our place for the season. A little Christmas tree this year, to fit our budget, but its real and I love it. We even have a cute little furry present who found a new spot to sleep (or play with the ornaments).
Monday: Back to the Grind of the Rowing Machine.
Because it has been a little bit of time since our last row we altered our rowing progression just a tad.
5 min easy tempo
10 min tempo
5 min easy tempo
It was rough getting up early and having to cope with the thought of going back to work, holiday breaks are SO nice, but it felt good to finally feel like a normal human being who could breathe!
Tuesday: Rest Run
We finally ran today!
Nothing really set, no goals, just running.
We didn’t make it up in the morning which meant we were fighting the crowds after work at the gym. I am grateful for the indoor track when I am not forced to run in a zig-zag motion to dodge walkers, slow joggers, and oblivious stand-arounders (new word).
Justin and I have a few pet peeves when it comes to working out at the gym but I think fighting for space on the indoor track is one that we both share.
Despite the crowd fighting and few week delay since our last run, this run felt pretty good, which was really encouraging.
One of my biggest fears, in taking a break from training, was the potential of losing all of the hard work that we had put in… namely, 11 weeks of training. It’s been a journey of SO much hard work, it would be devastating to “lose” it all. So, to come back and feel good and strong was that much more of an encouragement that this hard work is paying off and for the long term.
Wednesday: A Rest Day and Some Christmas Spirit at Work.
A mid week rest day!
A rare day at work meant I had no meetings scheduled for my entire Wednesday ( I can say that now that the day is over with). This was the perfect time for me to work on our office Holiday challenge to decorate our office “doors.”
I put air quotes around “doors” because due to the sensitive nature of the paint on our office doors (the paint will peel off with any sort of tape), we will be decorating next to our doors.
Well… that simply was not suitable for me. So I decided to make an identical mock door…
Misspelled name plate included.
I then got to work at decorating my door. A tacky sweater for a misplaced door.
It was a lot of fun and made the office laugh. I appreciate the fact that my sense of humor is understood.
I do have to give credit where credit is due, the mock door idea was stemmed from Justin. We are a good pair!
Thursday: Early Morning Tempo Run.
They say that the hardest part of a run is taking the first step… Although I ultimately agree, I’d argue that the hardest part of a run is getting out of bed before the sun! This Thursday morning run was a STRUGGLE to get started. Everything in my body wanted to grab the blankets and cuddle deeper into bed. It was really cold outside, which does nothing to help the situation.
Despite this trial, we got up and got it done!
Now that the hard part is over, I am really glad we push ourselves.
Both Justin and I knocked out an easy paced 5 miles. I took to the treadmill and Justin took to the indoor track. We got to the gym at an early 5:30 am and really enjoyed the scarcity of the place.
I love being able to get things done and feel like I am in my own bubble…. I don’t love when people decide to take the ONLY treadmill right next to mine when every other treadmill is open and available for use… this happened.
I had about 1 mile left to run and this girl came (wearing a massive amount of perfume, ugh) and starting prepping on the machine right next to mine. To make matters worse, she actually stretched behind the machine I was on (it was really weird) and then starting swinging her leg (to stretch her hips I assumed) on her machine practically coming close to tripping me up. Ridiculous. During the busy hours, I totally get it. Take any machine that is available. But not at 5:30 am when almost every other treadmill is actually available. Remember when I talked about a gym pet peeve of running through crowds of people? THIS is my new biggest pet peeve. I like my personal space and get up before the sun to ensure that I have it. I don’t mind running next to someone however, it became almost unbearable when I was hit in the face with a STRONG scent of perfume (like middle school boys locker room headache strong) and feared being tripped by her bubble invasive stretching. If only you all could have seen the face I wanted to make at this situation.
Praise God I was literally almost done and was able to abandon ship before a real headache or trip up occurred.
Friday: Date Night!
We took a break from rowing and decided to go on a spontaneous date night to our two favorite places; Taco Mama and Steele City Pops. My heart and stomach were so happy! We don’t get to take many date nights but I really enjoy the opportunities when we can. We then came home and watched a few Christmas movies.
Saturday: Not Letting the Weather Rain on our Parade… Literally.
Some pretty strong storms blew through the area this Saturday. Not the type of “one and done” storm that may blow through. No, this was an all day rain and wind storm that just made you want to stay inside.
Motivated by the fact that we were feeling much better than the weeks prior, Justin and I knew that we were going to run our long run, even if it meant inside.
This was a little intimidating as it would be our first long run inside BUT we were ready.
I took to a treadmill and was pleasantly surprised! I did not get bored (thankfully) and ended up feeling pretty okay. I was a little worried I would have to stop to use the restroom but I was able to push through it. My goal was to run 7 miles which would be the longest duration of time or mileage spent on the treadmill. 5 miles has been the closest successful number I’ve reached. What is another 2 miles? I told myself to start off slow and only increase when I felt like it. One of the tips I had read, regarding running long miles successfully on a treadmill, was to change up the mileage with intervals. I somewhat had this idea in the back of my mind, that I wanted to do something in this respect.
The first mile, I started off at a 6.0 speed which equated to a 10 min per mile pace. Mile #2 I increased to a 6.1 speed. Mile #3 and #4 I increased and maintained a 6.2 speed. Mile #5 I decreased back down to 6.1. Mile #6 and #7 was then decreased back to 6.0 where I finished the last half mile at a 7.3 pace (which is my 5K pace because my favorite running song came on… I couldn’t resist).
The first 5 miles were pretty solid. My legs felt strong and I felt pretty good, overall. I had a few moments where my stomach felt questionable but kept pushing through, I think it was more nerves than anything. The last 2 miles were more of a mental struggle than anything. The mind is a powerful thing so I started repeating positive affirmations to myself of ” I can do this!”. Eventually this actually transitioned to me just spelling ” C-A-N” over and over because after a while can started sounding like can’t and I didn’t want to jinx it. Hah! Believe it or not, this actually worked pretty well. Not sure if it was because I was taking my mind off the struggle of the run or that I was genuinely convincing myself that I can do this (which I definitely could), but I was able to get it done!
It’s been a really long time since I have been able to run this distance without stopping. This run was something I genuinely needed to accomplish. This run, all be it, on the treadmill, was the confidence boost I needed to remind myself that progress is still progress, even if it’s slow and steady. A month ago, there was no way I could run 5 miles much less 7 and still have energy to continue. A month ago, I was not running my track repeats at under 8 minutes a mile.
Now, I feel as though I am over a huge hump and seeing a light of believing I can actually achieve my goal come our half marathon.
Justin, (yes, I almost forgot to talk about his long run in the midst of my long run story… whoops) had an awesome Saturday run! He took to the indoor track to knock out 10 miles. Just let that sink in for a second. 10 miles… around a track. 3 laps equals 1 mile, which meant Justin had to run 30 laps. PASS! Regardless of my feelings about it (more so because I’d be the one to lose count), I also know that Justin’s run was not as easy as he made it look. He said at around mile 2 he also debated with the thought of having to stop mid run for a restroom break. He said he eventually forgot about it and was able to keep pushing on but it was definitely something that he was worried could make a break the run. Overall, Justin did an incredible job not only hitting his projected goal of running his half marathon pace of 7:51 + 30 seconds, but exceeding it consistently.
His repeats are below:
I am so proud of Justin and all that he has accomplished during this training. I know a lot of these updates are about me because this blog is written from my perspective but I don’t want to forget about Justin. I always tell him that he makes running these miles look effortless, but I have been reassured and know deep down that, that is definitely not the case. Justin works SO hard and pushes himself past his limits. During our training he has pushed through stomach issues (not a new thing but still a challenge), shin splints, head cold (both of us with that one), and my struggle bus of a self at times. He is the one who pushes me to get up in the mornings or follow through with a workout after work. This training thing is not always fun and is definitely not easy but it has helped to have someone to do it with. As I have seen myself grow and improve, I have seen Justin do the same.
11 weeks have passed and we have 12 more to go until our actual race. If this is how far we’ve come in these past few months, imagine where we will be once race day comes?!
Run Box Run 
I feel like I’m right there with you. That’s a mark of a good writer. ❤️
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