This past weekend marked the forth in a row that I wasn’t at home. In fact, I’ve only been home for five full days since August 18th. Having just finished the 7th week of my 16-week Run Less Run Faster (affiliate link) training cycle for my OBX Half Marathon, I’ve had to complete over half of my runs away from home. 

Always planning ahead, I did my track workout on Monday and my tempo run on Wednesday so I could do my long run on Friday while visiting my mom at the farm, and before heading on to Blacksburg Saturday morning for the Virginia Tech football game.

I headed to the high school track on Monday morning only to find it locked (even the secret back gate was locked). Fortunately, my schedule had me running 6 x 800’s with 90-second rest intervals and a 1-mile warm-up and 1-mile cool-down. My friend Tracy met me, and we improvised by running in the parking lot. Unbelievably, the distance from the front left side of the school’s football field to the back right side of the school is exactly 1/2 mile. Since we were running at 7 AM on a holiday, it was very easy to run back and forth in the parking lot. My goal pace for each 800 was 7:27; however, I just couldn’t hit those numbers. My paces were 8:08, 8:12, 7:54, 8:04, 7:57, and 7:39.

After I finished my repeats, I ran back to the gate to double check that I hadn’t messed up thinking it was locked when it really wasn’t. One of my MRTT friends posted that it looks locked when it’s not and I started second guessing myself and that I’d overlooked something – I hadn’t.

 

Before heading home, I decided to take my frustrations out on the tackle dummies and do a little cross training at the same time. Just kidding, if I’d run against them with any force I’m sure I would have been catapulted back to where I started, but at a much quicker speed. HaHa!

 

On Wednesday, I was scheduled to run 7 miles with 5 at a tempo pace of 8:28. I ran to the W&OD Trail for my 1-mile warm-up, and once there, ran my tempo run on a relatively flat portion of the trail. Again, I struggled to keep the pace I needed – my mile splits were 9:19, 8:56, 8:57, 9:19, and 8:51. My speedy running friend Kathy caught up with me just after I turned around at my half-way point and paced me for 2.5 miles. Even though she was running a long run at an easy conversation pace, she still pushed me, helping me hit my last two miles closer to my targeted tempo pace than I might have on my own.

 

Friday morning, I got up early to head out for a long run before Bill and I took my mom out for lunch for her birthday. It was 37° and foggy at 7:30 when I headed out. I’d forgotten to bring gloves with me so I borrowed a pair from my mom. I started running as soon as I stepped out of the door so I didn’t have a chance to get too cold, even in shorts and a tank. The sun was working hard to burn off the fog and by the time I reached 1.5 miles, I was past the tree-lined river and in the sun. Completely warmed up, I was able to shed my gloves. My plan called for me to run 10 miles at an average pace of 10:48 (I didn’t have my plan with me and remembered it as 10:28). Despite the southwestern Virginia hills, I maintained a 10:27 average pace and thought I was spot on.

 

With the sky half foggy and half sunny, I paused long enough to set up my GoPro for some quick picture of my biking buddy and me.

 

 

Saturday morning we drove from my Mom’s house to Blacksburg to watch our Hokies play. We had a great time seeing friends, but I’m grateful to be home even if it does mean I’m back to work tomorrow…

 

Even though I continued to mix things up this week, I’d say it was a pretty good week of training. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow and adjust accordingly. I’m extremely happy to be home for a few more weeks before we travel again!

Looking ahead to this coming week, I plan to write my recap from last week’s Shenandoah Half Marathon, and what ever else might come to mind.

In case you missed it, this past week I posted the following articles:

In addition to the runs I mentioned above, here’s a run-down of other workouts I completed this past week…

 

Fitness tools beyond the equipment in my gym that I used during the week included: 

Cameras used for blog photography include:

 

  • Questions:
  • If you’re training for a fall race, what training plan are you following? Your own, one from a book/online, or a hybrid?
  • Are you a college football fan? 
  • Did you race this weekend? 

 

Have a great week!

 

Disclaimer:  This post contains affiliate links which means if you click on the blue product link and then make a purchase, I will receive a commission for referring you. You will pay no more or less for the product; however, Amazon will show their gratitude for my referral by paying me.

 

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I’m linking up with Holly at HoHo Runs and Tricia from MissSippiPiddlin for their Weekly Wrap. Be sure to check out not only the hosts’ posts, but the other great bloggers joining in on the fun!

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I’m also linking up with Courtney from Eat Pray Run DC for her Training Recap linkup. Be sure to check out how Courtney the other great bloggers joining the linkup are doing on their fall marathon and half marathon training.