The holidays are a busy time and it feels like I did all this a hundred years ago. Marathon training continues as the weather starts to get worse…..
Monday, 12/18, School Bus Crew – Swim 1850 yards
Swimming with Snarky Girl and a new swim friend. Snarky Girl and I did 8×125 with a super short break at 75 and last 50 meters hard. Challenging for sure, but fun! She is getting much, much faster in the pool.
Tuesday, 12/19, Early Morning Crew – 8.5 miles easy, (9:41 pace)
8 miles “easy” on a Tuesday? How is 8 miles mid-week supposed to be “easy”? Marathon training does weird things to one’s perspective. However, I ran this with a group of friends and it actually did feel easy. I also got to try out my new Sugoi tights, which I loved. I had said I wasn’t buying new gear this training cycle, but so much for that idea. Stupid cold weather is on the way so new warm tights it is.
Wednesday, 12/20, Lunch Time Crew – 4 easy miles (8:57 pace), plus strength training
This was one of those runs where you take the first step and feel like, whoa! Where did all that springiness come from? Don’t know and doesn’t matter – I just enjoyed it. For me to run sub-9 minute miles and have it feel easy is basically unprecedented. Plus, this was my route from the gym and I saw at least 10 ducks on the creek!
Thursday, 12/21, School Bus Crew – 10 miles, tempo intervals
Thursdays are starting to be a little scary. 1 mile warm up, 4 miles at half marathon pace, 1 mile recovery, 3 miles at 10K pace, 1 mile cool down. I’m still doing these tempo runs on my favorite stretch of road so I get a good view, what counts around here as flat, and no intersections. This is the first run where the temperature started to be pretty cold. By the end of the 10K segment, I felt like I was dying, but all in all, this went fairly well. Rewarded myself with Starbucks.
Friday, 12/22, Early Morning Crew – 4 easy miles (9:07 pace), then strength training later
No trails this week because everyone is busy with holiday preparations and travel. Another peppy 4-miler and then lifted at the YMCA with Snarky Girl. What would I do without her? She’s not even training for anything!
Saturday, 12/23, Afternoon Crew – 5 easy miles on treadmill (9:36 pace) 
The weather started to make things really interesting. At the Readers Roundtable on Monday, I had noted that I had no flexibility to move anything this weekend because of holiday commitments and therefore we had better not have a blizzard today. No blizzard, just freezing rain and ice. I won’t run on ice and 15 on the treadmill seemed too awful so I did 5 and moved the long run to Sunday, finding some flexibility after all.
Sunday, 12/24, Morning Crew – 15 miles, last 5 at marathon pace
Early Bird does a Christmas Eve fun run every year. We meet at the YMCA, run a few miles and go for brunch. I really didn’t want to miss it, but I also had 15 miles to go with the last 5 at marathon pace. After consulting with Coach Mick, I decided to go ahead and split the run, so I could do the fun run and brunch and then continue on with the last 10. In a stroke of amazing good luck, Rashi decided the fun run was a bit early for her, but she was in for brunch and the last 10 miles. So I ended up with company for the whole thing! Flexibility is key and this turned out to be an amazing end to the week!
Total: 46.5 miles