And just like that, I completed week 16 of my 16-week Run Less Run Faster (affiliate link) training cycle for my OBX Half Marathon which means that my target race was this weekend! More on that later…

Scheduled for my final track workout was 6 x 400-meter repeats at a 7:18 goal pace with 400 recoveries, bookended by a 1-mile warm-up and 1-mile cool-down. Early morning clients prevented my normal pre-dawn workout, so I slathered on the sunscreen and headed out for my run at 1 PM.

I opted to run to a local elementary school instead of driving to the middle school where we’ve been meeting most Tuesday mornings. At this particular track, 1 lap is .21 mile which is quite large as compared to some of our other elementary school tracks, and it doesn’t have square corners like some! This particular leaf-covered curve was shaded, wet, and quite slippery so I had to be careful. Ain’t nobody got time for an injury less than a week before the big day!

 

Without my glasses or contacts, I thought the 6 on my Garmin was an 8, so I kept pushing a little harder to make my goal pace. I ended up running all my repeats too fast as I tried to get down into the 7’s to my 7:18 goal and ran my repeats at 6:46, 6:24, 6:19, 6:40, 6:33, and 6:42 paces.

 

Rather than a tempo run for my second run of the week, I was scheduled to go out on a 3-mile easy run. I kinda like this tapering thing! 😉 I kept it nice and easy and averaged a 10:29 pace as I took in the fall sights in my neighborhood.

 

On Thursday afternoon, Bill and I arrived at our beach house with our long-time friend Beth. It was a rainy day, but that was nothing as compared to the howling wind that hit on Thursday night. We took a walk on the beach which felt more like a sand shower, and if you remember, I’m not a fan of getting sand on me…

Just as it was getting dark, the rest of our friends arrived. We had an epic birthday celebration (for my 60th) that night since we would all be hydrating and watching what we ate the following day, the day before the OBX Half Marathon. They certainly had me crying with their thoughtful gifts, but more on that at another time…

We were all up by 4 AM on race morning to make our way south to Nags Head for the 7 AM start of our race. Luckily the two days of cold, crazy wind had died down, and we awoke to perfect racing weather. It was 46° when the starting gun fired and didn’t get much higher than 50°. I can’t wait to write my recap sometime later this week, but for now, I’ll share a picture from the start.

 

Thanks for following along on the ups and downs of this 16-week training cycle!

 

In case you missed it on the blog, this past week I posted:

Looking ahead to this coming week, on Tuesday I’ll publish my annual Birthday Letter To Myself with appropriate updates. I hope to have time to sort through my pictures from the weekend and write an OBX Half Marathon race recap to post later in the week.

In addition to the runs I mentioned above, here’s a run-down of the other workouts I completed this past week. You’ll notice that I cut my Monday, Wednesday, and Friday workouts short as I skipped legs entirely, giving them a chance to rest up for the big day.

 

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

Cameras used for blog photography include:

 

  • Questions:
  • How’s the weather where you live?
  • When was your last destination race? 
  • 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.

 

*********************************************************************

 

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!

WeeklyWrapButton