Week 1 was focused on getting adjusted to training with a coach again. I’m assuming it was an easy week so I wasn’t cussing out Elliot Week 1 Day 1. Luckily for Elliot I waited until Week 2 Day 6.
Favorite conversation around running this week:
Me: “I don’t understand why people aren’t a fan of lollipop (a route filled with rolling hills). I actually enjoy it! What goes up must go down, right?”
Gilbert (founder of Gilbert’s Gazelles and honestly, he deserves his own post): He smirks at me. “It’s hard. And we don’t like to do hard things.”
Week 2 program looked like this:
- Day 1: Easy Recovery Run w/ form tips
- Easy Pace x 30 min
- Day 2: 7 mile progression
- Easy first 2 miles, marathon pace 3 miles, half marathon pace 1 mile, back down to easy pace over the last mile
- Day 3: Foundation Run + 30 min strength session
- 5 min easy, 30 min @ 7:25-7:59 min/mile, 5 min cool down
- Day 4: 9 run drills + Fartlek Run
- 15 min easy, 6 x 30 second @ 5k pace, 1 min recovery @ 7:25-7:59 min/mile, 15 min easy
- Day 5: Drill Bike – RPM x 60 minutes + Strength Session
- 4 x 9 min progression repeats of 95-105 RMP, 1 min recovery
- Day 6: Long Run
- Run 5 min easy, 80 min @7:25-7:59 min/miles, 5 min easy
- Day 7: 45 min easy run + hip extension focus training
- low intensity, avoid high intensity
Going from very little structure to structure with paces I hadn’t be running in a few months, gave me anxiety. In a good way! Sub 8 min/miles are hard for me right now. I have known Elliot for nearly 15 years and I know by now he is going to give me workouts that push me beyond what I feel is capable.
Day 2. I didn’t follow this precisely. Mainly I wanted to see what I could do on my own terms and I forgot to read the workout before we took off. 😛
Day 4. I decided that sleep was more important and slept in, cutting the workout short. Shit! It’s waaaay too early in this cycle to be cutting workouts short.
Day 5. I have a love/hate relationship with bike workouts. Some days I need a break from running and the bike is a great option. However, the power house of the body needs to sit over the crank and a woman’s arms typically aren’t as long as a man’s arms making the fit of spin bikes NOT very ideal. But you make do.
Day 6: Eeesh. It was an okay run. This run was absolutely hell. My body isn’t used to running these paces and my mental game was on vacation. It was a lot of stop/go even though I ran with others. As I told my coach, “I had some dark as f*ck miles”. I was counting down the minutes, telling myself to get to the next minute (yes, minute. NOT mile). You can do anything for 5 minutes, right?!
As I was trying to get myself out of the darkness, the conversation I had with Gilbert earlier in the week popped into my head. “We don’t like to do hard things”, I thought to myself. He’s right. We like to be in our comfort zones. When things get challenging, we often back off and take a new approach. Self doubt kicks in, wondering if were are truly capable of something. But here’s the thing, he never once said, ” we CAN’T“. I often find that my mind pulls me out of a tough workout before my legs and lungs give out. I am making the promise to myself to ditch can’t from my vocabulary. I CAN do tough things.
Cheers!