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By kilax, January 24, 2016 6:53 pm

Highlight of the Week: A kick arse tempo run / teaching two full weekend classes at the studio.

Monday | January 18, 2016: 8 m run (incl. 7×4 laps (457m)) + 7 m ride (w/Steven) + teaching strength class
Loc: Lindenhurst Park District Indoor Track, Time: 1:07:49, Pace: 8:29 avg, Difficulty: mostly easy, Felt: good
Indoor Ride Time: 26:18, Pace: 16.0 mpg avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, tired legs
Strength: medicine balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Tuesday | January 19, 2016: rest
Wednesday | January 20, 2016: 10 m run (hills)
Loc: hood, Temp: 14°/14°, Time: 1:33:54, Pace: 9:23 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, careful on the fresh snow
Thursday | January 21, 2016: 10 m ride + 20 mins strength + 7 m run (5 m progressive tempo)
Indoor Ride Time: 39:38, Pace: 15.1 mph avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good
Loc: around Gages Lake, Temp: 26°/23°, Time: 8:17, Pace: 58:03 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: fantastic!
Friday | January 22, 2016: teaching strength class + 8.2 m run
Strength: Two Dumbbells and some cardio burst, Difficulty:medium/hard, Felt: good but a bit spent
Loc: hood, Temp: 23°/23°, Time: 1:14:45, Pace: 9:07, Difficulty: medium, Felt: SPENT
Saturday | January 23, 2016: 3.3 m run + teaching cycling class + teaching fitness boxing
Loc: hood, Temp: 24°/25°, Time: 29:29, Pace: 8:56 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, needed to shake out the legs
Indoor Cycling Time: 55:06, Pace: 17.4 mph avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good, pumped
Strength: boxing and body weight movements, Difficulty: medium, Felt: great
Sunday | January 24, 2016: 14 m run + 8.7 m ride (w/Steven)
Loc: around town, Temp: 26°/27°, Time: 2:08:48, Pace: 9:12 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good but tired
Indoor Bike Time: 34:50, Pace: 15.0 mph avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: happy Steven was biking

Notes:

• 5K course PR training this week:
  • Monday: 7×4 laps on the indoor track
  • Wednesday: hills
  • Thursday: I was going to do an even split tempo on Friday, but I needed a stress relief sesh on Thursday and I ended up with a nice 5 mile progressive (negative) split tempo that felt fantastic. I’ll take it!
  • I liked having my focused runs done early in the week so I could do some junk miles (my fave, ha) for my last few runs of the week.
  • I’ll have a limited schedule next week so I am not sure if I’ll get in these three workouts each week, but I’ll definitely do my speedwork.
• My Friday strength class this week was challenging! It was a simple two dumbbell workout but I put combos together that were challenging – heavy weights then cardio to jack up your heart rate, and core stuff too. FUN! I was so spent on the run after class though – the entire thing felt like the last few miles of a marathon, ha! (and I had to roll out of bed the next morning)
• When I was putting together my playlist for fitness boxing, I looked at an old Destiny’s Child album and was reminded how much I LOVED this song back in the day (and still do love!):

• I was on such a high after teaching cycling and fitness boxing on Saturday! I had full classes, and everyone was working hard and pushing themselves – it was such a great vibe! My next weekend class isn’t until February 14th – I reserved the next two weekends off for our potential house move. When I find out when we close, I may have to add a class on the weekend we aren’t moving – I’ll miss not teaching for that long!
• One of the reasons I love teaching fitness boxing is because it’s fun for me to develop new punching/kicking combos for the students to do. However, I think I need to be more diligent about keeping a majority of the basic, simpler moves in each class so they’re easy to follow and people can focus on their strength rather than trying to remember a combo.
• My brother-in-law gave me a Kohl’s gift card for Christmas and I used it to get this schweet Star Wars workout top! I first saw it in the store, with BB-8 on the front, which I loved, but that one was the wrong size. When I ordered this top, it didn’t show BB-8 in the pictures at all, so I am happy he made it to the back!

Link to Training Week 326

Comments (32)

By kilax, January 19, 2016 6:05 am

Schweet, I found another use for my knitting row counter:

Counting laps at the track!

It was -11°F (with a -29°F “real feel”) yesterday when I wanted to do my run, so I decided to go to an indoor track I’ve heard my friends talk about before.

14 laps to a mile?! Eek!

Since I was going to be inside on a flat track, I decided to do my speed work: 7 x 400 m. Only, the lap count was odd for that, so I ran 7 x 4 laps, which equated to 457 m intervals.

The run went by surprisingly fast. That usually happens with speed work though. Here’s what I’m planning for speed work for my 5K course PR training (with some tempos and hills thrown in):

Week 1: 6×400
Week 2: 3×800, 4×1:00
Week 3 (this week): 7×400 (7×457)
Week 4: 4×800, 6×1:00
Week 5: 8×400
Week 6: 5×800, 8×1:00
Week 7: 9×400
Week 8 (race week): 6×1:00

The only bad part about running on the track was the tight corners. I think my right hip will be feeling that today.

Okay, also, the dude who was walking in the run lap most of the time. But, oh well.

Everyone else there was walking, and they were all super nice to me. One lady told me I look really tan and asked if I just got back from a vacation. Ha, I should’ve told her I just got back from Iowa! I had a nice conversation with her.

The next lady asked how far I was going and told me I was inspiring. That made me feel great! And the last guy I talked to also asked how far I went, and told me he admired my pace. I had a nice convo with him too! Talking all those nice people made me want to go back! I’m sure I will. I bet we’ll have a few more days where the temperature and wind chill are cold enough to make me run inside, ha!

Comments (2)

By kilax, January 17, 2016 3:37 pm

Highlight of the Week: Cycling with Tina/feeling awesome on my long run!

Monday | January 11, 2016: 8 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 11°/12°, Time: 1:10:49, Pace: 8:51 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but stomach was crampy
Strength: medicine balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but low on energy – had to drink a Vitamin Water
Tuesday | January 12, 2016: 11 m ride (w/Tina)
Bike Time: 43:43, Pace: 15.1 mph avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good to do some intervals!
Wednesday | January 13, 2016: 10 m run + 20 mins strength
Loc: hood-ish, Temp: -1°/-1°, Time: 1:30:58, Pace: 9:06 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, frustrated my phone died (but my fault)
Thursday | January 14, 2016: 5 m run (incl. 3×800, 4×1:00) + 6.5 m ride (w/Steven)
Loc: hood, Temp: 34°/38°, Time: 41:44, Pace: 8:21 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good
Indoor Ride Time: 24:41, Pace: 15.8 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Friday | January 15, 2016: teaching strength class + 18.5 m run
Strength: medicine balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee, Temp: 38°/40°, Time: 2:52:30, Pace: 9:19, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, after mile 5
Saturday | January 16, 2016: 3 m run
Loc: Cedar Falls, Temp: 5°/5°, Time: 25:57, Pace: 8:39 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, warm!
Sunday | January 17, 2016: rest

Notes:

• A few people asked if I would talk about my 5K course PR focused workouts, so I’ll highlight them each week until the race. My plan this week was hills on Wednesday, and speedwork on Thursday (no tempo this week because I was traveling – hopefully next week!).
  • The hills only partially happened, because I got out on the route and my phone died (due to low temps), and I didn’t feel safe at that time of day without it, so I ran back to the house to grab another phone. Ha. But I did get some hills in!
  • Thursday I ran 3×800 and 4×1:00, with no goal pace, on a hilly course. Challenging, but good for me!
• This week Steven asked me why I am running so much – if I was training for something. Just that 5K course PR. But yeah, I know I don’t need to run this much. I told him why I am though – it’s the only thing keeping me sane while dealing with the house and work stress. I do foresee less running at the end of the month and beginning of February when commuting for work and moving will take up more of my time.
• A new student tried out one of my strength classes this week! Our classes have regular enrollment (students sign up for the month), so you typically work out with the same people month after month, and year after year. It’s fun to have your core workout group like that, but I think it’s good when new people come from time to time – it mixes things up AND makes it more challenging for me, as the instructor, to adjust workouts as I learn the new person’s capabilities.
• This week was my first run of the year in a different state – Iowa! I didn’t get to run with my dad though – it was a bit too cold out to be riding a bike, ha! Hopefully next time I see him he can ride with me!

Link to Training Week 325

Comments (14)

By kilax, January 12, 2016 4:44 am

I received this book as a holiday gift from my father-in-law, and liked it so much I want to share my thoughts here. This isn’t a sponsored post.

Yay! I actually finished a book in a normal amount of time (two weeks) – which means I can cohesively comprehend what I read! Ha ha.

How Bad Do You Want It?, by Matt Fitzgerald, is about how endurance athletes can learn to cope with discomfort and stress while performing, to achieve their best results. The book is heavily focused on the psychobiological model of endurance performance – that the mind and body are deeply connected, with the mind being in charge (as opposed to previous models which believed endurance performance was mostly biological, not psychological).

Well, that makes sense, right? Our brain runs everything! But it’s more than that – it’s the concept that in order to become a better endurance athlete, it’s NOT so much actual effort you have to learn to deal with, but perception of effort – how your brain reacts to what you are doing. Only then, can you push yourself further and further to your limits.

IF you want to. I mean, the title of the book is “how bad do you want it?”!!! I know I’ve been in races and given up toward the end, deciding I didn’t want what I was going for (and truly not being upset about it). I’ve been beaten out of first place (in age group and overall) by less than 10 seconds a few times and said to myself – “yeah, she wanted it more than me and she worked for it, good for her!”

But… what about when you DO actually want it bad enough to go for it?! This has happened to me as well (thankfully, ha) where I had my mind so set on something that I pushed for it and got there – and if it’s happened to you, you know it’s one of the best feelings in the world! This book is about how to achieve that.

The book is twelve chapters – an introduction and conclusion, and ten chapters in between, each one going over a different coping (with the pain of working hard) mechanism, using anecdotes about endurance athletes from the past forty or so years.

I like that it was anecdotal. Stories tend to stick with me – I remember the examples from them better than reading straight up research. And each chapter does have a lot of research in it – but sandwiched between the story (each chapter seemed to start with the story build up, then there’d be the research-y/science-y stuff, then you’d get the conclusion to the story, after).

I did NOT like the goofy analogy throughout the whole book of endurance training being like a fire walk – you know, when people walk on hot coals. That’s just not relatable to me. It felt cheesy and forced.

I also thought it was funny that Pre is on the cover, but he is not even brought up until the final chapter! I was getting worried he wasn’t going to be in there at all!

But the book was definitely effective. Since reading it, I’ve already thought to myself during workouts, “how bad do I want this?” to push myself a bit more. I think I’ll review each chapter’s “coping mechanism” and my highlighted notes from time to time, to see if I am retaining what I read… and if I am using it!

Continue reading 'How Bad Do You Want It? Book Review'»

Comments (45)

By kilax, January 11, 2016 6:22 am

I’m signed up for exactly one race (so far) this year. A local 5K at the end of February. And I have a goal for it.

I don’t often set race goals, but I always seem to with this race! I’ve tried to PR on it (bad idea, it’s hilly) and I’m always trying to win my age group (I’ve been in first place 4 of the 7 times, and in second the other 3 times… it’s a small race, ha!).

This year, I am going for a course PR.

I ran it last year in 22:58. My 5K PR is 21:48. Should be a piece of cake, right?!

Ha! Not if I keep eating pieces of cake. Ha. Ha ha. Sigh.

I see three potential things holding me back from a course PR: weather/route conditions (a BIG if in February), hills, and diet. The first one is out of my control. But I can train for hills (I already have my speed and hill work planned out).

And… I can alter my diet?!

Ha!

Since the marathon, I’ve been eating like I am not training for anything (because I’m not!) – healthy, but not as diligent as in marathon training. Maintaining weight loss, but only losing a few pounds since the marathon. It’s time to get back with the program! The race is just under seven weeks away – I could make some major progress before then, and run faster with less effort, if I was lighter!

Or, should I start at six weeks, after my family Christmas?

Or, after the move? Yeah, that will definitely be stressful and mess with my eating. But how many weeks away is that?

Ha ha ha. JUST kidding… er…

I guess it’s really one race, TWO goals: course PR and shed a few pounds to get there. Here we go!

I usually don’t talk about weight loss on here. It’s such a different journey for everyone, and I don’t like people paying attention to what I weigh. But, I bet a lot of people are in the same boat as me after the holidays, so why not share?

Comments (4)

By kilax, January 10, 2016 4:27 pm

Highlight of the Week: Indoor cycling (2x!) with Steven!

Monday | January 4, 2016: 7 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: hood, Temp: 28°, Time: 1:04:28, Pace: 9:12 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: okay, but regretted my afternoon snack choice
Strength: medicine balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | January 5, 2016: 5 m ride (w/Steven!!!) + 20 mins strength
Indoor Ride Time: 19:50, Pace: 15.2 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Wednesday | January 6, 2016: 11 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 27°/24°, Time: 1:38:59, Pace: 9:00 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great, esp. after I woke up! Ha!
Thursday | January 7, 2016: 6 m run (incl. 6×400)
Loc: hood, Temp: 37°/37°, Time: 52:16, Pace: 8:42 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good, grateful for the warmth 
Friday | January 8, 2016: teaching strength class + 16 m run
Strength: medicine balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: Grayslake/Gurnee loop, Temp: 39°/38°, Time: 2:33:24, Pace: 9:35, Difficulty: easy, Felt: decent, tired legs after speedwork (per usual)
Saturday | January 9, 2016: 10 m run (incl. hills) + 6.5 m ride (w/Steven) + 20 mins strength  + boxing w/Steven
Loc: Hood to Heather Ridge, Temp: 35°/35°, Time: 1:30:30, Pace: 9:03 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good, gassed at the end
Indoor Cycling Time: 25:32, Pace: 15.3 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Sunday | January 10, 2016: teaching fitness boxing + 5 m run
Strength: body weight w/hand resistance bands and boxing, Difficulty: easy (mostly observing), Felt: great
Loc: hood, Temp: 13°/13°, Time: 40:22, Pace: 8:04 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great

Notes:

• I’m loving running in our rental neighborhood! The location is similar to my old neighborhood, in that I am mostly locked in to the northeast corner of where two highways intersect (with few opportunities to cross), but the difference here is that there are tons of connecting neighborhoods, so I can run a variety of routes! At the old house, there were just two neighborhoods to run through (and a trail going in two directions, to use when not covered in snow) and that got really old in the winter (it was A LOT of cul-de-sac running…).
• My feet and legs let me know it was time for new running shoes this week. Ugh. I was hoping losing weight would make my shoes last longer – nope – I still wildly supinate to the midfoot on one side, and the rearfoot on the other, and that destroys my shoes.
• And speaking of feet… my entire long run was in the rain this week, and that was NOT good for my toe with the missing toenail. Ouch. For whatever reason, it aggravated it.
• This was my fourth week in a row teaching fitness boxing! I thought I’d be ready for a break next weekend, but I am kind of sad I am not teaching it again until the 23rd.

Link to Training Week 324

Comments (9)

By kilax, January 3, 2016 8:24 pm

Highlight of the Week: Seeing a beautiful sunset / students telling me they enjoyed fitness boxing / a strong finish to 2015 and a strong start to 2016!

Monday | December 28, 2015: 15 m ride
Indoor Bike Time: 1:03:02, Pace: 14.3 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Tuesday | December 29, 2015: 5 m run + 5 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 28°/29°, Time: 41:34, Pace: 8:18 avg, Difficulty: easy then medium, Felt: good
Loc: hood, Temp: 28°/28°, Time: 41:59, Pace: 8:24 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Wednesday | December 30, 2015: teaching strength class + 7 m run
Strength: medicine balls, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Loc: hood, Temp: 28°/28°, Time: 1:01:24, Pace: 8:46 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt:good, getting used to the inclines
Thursday | December 31, 2015: 5 m run
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee loop, Temp: 25°/25°, Time: 43:43, Pace: 8:44 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Friday | January 1, 2016: 14 m run + 20 mins strength + 7 m ride
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee Loop, Temp: 23°/24°, Time: 2:10:56, Pace: 9:21, Difficulty: easy, Felt: fantastic
Indoor Ride Time: 28:40, Pace: 14.7 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Saturday | January 2, 2016: 6 m run + teaching fitness boxing
Loc: Gages Lake Loop, Temp: 20°/20°, Time: 53:45, Pace: 8:58 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but a bit tired (leg muscles)
Strength: body weight w/hand resistance bands and boxing, Difficulty: easy, Felt: great
Sunday | January 3, 2016: 10 m run (incl. 10×1:00)
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee Loop, Temp: 28°/28°, Time: 1:31:15, Pace: 9:07 avg, Difficulty: easy/medium, Felt: good, challenged on the inclines

Notes:

• Someone yelled at me “You go girl!” when I ran by them during my Wednesday run. It totally made my run! And, I saw another runner in our rental neighborhood for the first time on Wednesday!
• I’m pleased that our rental neighborhood has some inclines in it. My old neighborhood did too, and regularly running those inclines makes real hills a bit less daunting for me. But gah, they’re hard at the end of a speed session!

• It was nice to have a holiday the last two Fridays, and to not have to wake up at 4:00 am to teach the 5:00 am strength class (I taught them on Wednesday the last two weeks instead). It’s rare I get to sleep in on a Friday!
• My phone decided it had enough of the cold during Saturday’s run and shut down on me (ironically, while I was taking a photo of the sun – which I hadn’t seen during a run in a long time). Oops. I forgot that in previous winters, I put it inside a glove, in my jacket pocket. I did that on Sunday’s run – I don’t feel comfortable running without a functioning phone.
• I’ve thought about this a few times since the marathon but keep forgetting to note it – when I did my long training runs, I turned off the pace view on my watch and used the screen showing overall time only. I did this so that I would run slower and not worry about pace (until I was almost home and then pick up the pace a bit). During the race however, I had pace showing, because I wanted to stay on track for a sub 4:00, and it felt a bit burdensome to look at my watch so much. During training, I did do middle distance at pace training runs showing pace on the watch, but 26.2 miles of it felt like so much longer. Because it was. It all turned out okay, and I became decent at running even-ish splits during training, I just need to find the right balance between running on feel and looking at my watch.
• December recap time! In December I ran 164.4 miles and cycled 55.5 miles. I taught 7 strength classes, 3 fitness boxing classes, and 1 indoor cycling class. On to 2016!

Link to Training Week 323

Comments (11)

By kilax, January 2, 2016 7:23 am

I wasn’t planning on posting a 2015 race infographic, but my obsessive record keeping made the data simple to find, and the Photoshop file only took an hour to edit (and of course, I enjoyed it)! Here it is! (You can see 2012 here, 2013 here, and 2014 here. You can always find my race stats here.)

Also, if you would like to fill out your own 2015 Racing Statistics in the comments or on your own blog, I created a google doc here for you to copy and fill out/edit!

• I did less races this year (this is the least I have done since 2010) and I see that trend continuing. However, I did “race” (I define that as going for a time goal) more than previous years.
• There was a higher percentage of unconventional “races” in the numbers this year – The Longest Day, two days of RAGBRAI, and a triathlon relay. I plan to do the last day of RAGBRAI again this year.
• This is the first year that the most races have not been in Illinois – Wisconsin took the title this year!
• It’s unusual for me to have so many summer races and NONE in October.
• I took favorite medal, bib, and shirt off the infographic because all that stuff is packed away and I can’t go through it, ha ha. But this is definitely my favorite shirt!
• I had a great year of racing, setting personal records in the 5K, 10K and Marathon. The Dallas Marathon was definitely the highlight of the year for me. I did have two horrible races – one because it was so muddy, and one because it was so humid/I was getting over a stomach thing.
• I don’t have many plans for 2016. I am signed up for a 5K, which I plan to race, and I’d like to PR in the half marathon. We’ll see what happens otherwise!

Comments (11)

By kilax, January 1, 2016 8:25 am

Yes, I love this Data very much,

but I am actually talking about numbers data. As in, exercise data that really only I care about, but am going to share here anyway!

In 2015, I started an exercise tracking spreadsheet, to use on top of Garmin Connect and the weekly training recaps I post here. I ended up loving using the spreadsheet, and tweaked it a bit as the year went on. You can see a copy of the sheet I created here.

I tracked a lot of info about my runs – who they were with (if anyone), what state they were in, what surface they were on, what time of day they were, and so on. I tracked the coldest and hottest temperature I ran in by month, what I ran in/on (rain/snow/etc.), the amount of doubles (double runs only, not strength or cross doubles), the amount of speed workouts, etc.

I also tracked cross training and strength training, but not in nearly as much detail.

So, I can tell you:

• I ran 309 times this year for a total of 2260 miles. That averages to 7.31 miles per run. My goal for the year was to hit 2000 miles by averaging 40 miles per week. I had 12 weeks where I did not meet my 40 miles goal, however, several weeks were well over 40 miles.
• 95% of my runs were outside.
• 85% of my runs were in Illinois, but I also ran in new to me places this year: Mexico, Minnesota, and Michigan (I also ran in Wisconsin, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, and Texas). The state I had more runs in after Illinois was Iowa at 4.7% .
• I ran 72% of my runs alone. But when I ran with someone, it was likely Kelly – we ran together 36 times (260.71 miles). Gina and Rachel were the people I ran with the most after Kelly – 14 (93.2 miles) and 13 (117.9 miles) times.

Running selfies! From L to R: w/Kelly, w/Gina, w/Rachel

• 59% of my runs were on paved trails or sidewalk (I think this percentage will go down big time in 2016).
• 75% of the runs were single digit runs, and 25% were double digit runs, but 47% of the total mileage came from double digit runs.
• 49% of my runs took place between 6 am and 11:59 am. The least amount of runs took place between 6 pm and 11:59 pm. Surprisingly, 29% took place between 12:00 pm and 5:59 pm – that was new for me this year. This is the year I became less of a morning runner, it seems!
• I did speedwork 56 times (once a week all year long, plus some extra).
• I did 20 doubles (at least one a month) and 7 bricks.
• The coldest I ran in was 2°F in March, and the hottest was 86°F in July. This is a smaller range than years past – most really cold runs were accompanied by bad road conditions, so those runs were indoors, and it didn’t get as hot here this year!

• I rode my bike 59 times (once a week all year long, plus some extra) for a total of 881.4 miles. 34% of those rides were outdoors, the rest were on a trainer (however, that doesn’t mean 34% of those miles were indoors). 4 of the rides were on a mountain bike, the rest were on my road bike.
• I did cross training 15 other times. Ha. Way to be versatile, Kim. I NEVER snowshoed. Eek!
• I taught 117 strength classes, and did 18 strength sessions on my own <— I’d like to see that second number increase in 2016!

Happy 2016! Hope it’s a healthy and happy year for you!

Comments (5)

By kilax, December 27, 2015 11:06 am

Highlight of the Week: Seeing coyotes on my Saturday run / teaching fitness boxing!

Monday | December 21, 2015: 6.5 m run + teaching strength class
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee Loop, Temp: 47°/47°, Time: 55:36, Pace: 8:33 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: fantastico
Strength: Kettlebells + plyo box, boxing, and dice game, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good (but too sweaty)
Tuesday | December 22, 2015: 10 m ride
Bike Time: 40:30, Pace: 14.8 mph avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Wednesday | December 23, 2015: teaching strength class + 8 m run
Strength: Kettlebells + plyo box, boxing, and dice game, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good (but too warm again)
Loc: Gages Lake/Gurnee, Temp: 56°/56°, Time: 1:12:43, Pace: 9:05 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good, but challenged by the wind (and still hot)
Thursday | December 24, 2015: 5 m run
Loc: hood, Temp: 39°/39°, Time: 44:38, Pace: 8:54 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Friday | December 25, 2015: rest
Saturday | December 26, 2015: 12 m run
Loc: Grayslake Loop, Temp: 39°/39°, Time: 1:50:45, Pace: 9:13 avg, Difficulty: easy, Felt: good
Sunday | December 27, 2015: 5 m run (incl. 1/2/3/4/5 ladder) + teaching fitness boxing
Loc: hood, Temp: 37°/37°, Time: 42:26, Pace: 8:29 avg, Difficulty: medium, Felt: good, pushed back by the wind
Strength: body weight and boxing , Difficulty: easy (mostly observing), Felt: great

Notes:

• Ha! Look at all those photos – they depict a gloomy week, don’t they? But, I like running when it’s overcast, and they were all good runs (despite some gusty days)!
• I had my post marathon recovery massage first thing Monday morning, again, focusing on my right hip/iliacus. It feels great most of the time… except when I am going up and down the stairs to the basement a lot. I’m not sure what to do about that – the rental house has so little storage on the main floor that most everything is in the basement! I bet I got up and down those steps 15-20 times a day! Not sure why those bug me, and the steps at our old house didn’t. Eh. I’ll be careful.
• I received How Bad Do You Want It?, by Matt Fitzgerald, for Christmas, and so far, it’s a really interesting read. The gist of the book is that endurance sports are highly dependent on mental toughness – that training doesn’t get you to (your version of) success alone. Mind over muscle, basically. In the second chapter, Fitzgerald talks about how you never know how much your next race is going to hurt, and that being hopeful that it won’t be as hard as before is harmful – that you should actually “brace yourself” for the worst – only then can you mentally prepare for competition. That was a bit of a revelation for me, as I have said, many times before, I want my races to be as pain-free as possible (and I don’t mean injury type pain, but pushing my threshold type pain). Hmm.
• Teaching fitness boxing is such a blast. The students just love it and really get in to it, which makes me happy to see. I hope I can do quite a few fitness boxing classes in 2016! We already have one set up for January 2!

Link to Training Week 322