Week In Review: Nothing Fancy, but a Nice Week

Two weeks ago, I started the week with a really crappy long run, and then I just ran easier that week and biked a lot instead. That ended up being great.

Last week, I started with a real nice long run of 8.5 miles (which was backed down from 9 the week before) when I probably would have gone 10 had I not had that real crappy run the week before.

The rest of last week was nothing too special: my first day of teaching this semester as well as my boys' first days, some normal core and upper body workouts, an easy trainer ride, a quick trip to a State Park when my boys had Friday off, and a nice long run on Sunday:

I also hit 20 miles of running for the week for the first time in 56 weeks!!! (20.11 miles)

The 2 workouts worth mentioning are:

FIRST IS FRIDAY'S 2x2 MILE INTERVALS! I'm surprised it took me this long into my "back to running" to bust these out - I think I was worried about having enough miles under my legs as this is a bit of a "long distance speed workout." I talk about these a lot - here's link from 2 years ago that goes into more detail as to why I like this workout.

I ran them along my normal running route these last few months (boringly straight down my road and back). I felt like I NAILED the first one. Here were my half-mile splits:

2:59, 2:59, 3:02, 2:52 = 11:54.44 (mile splits of 5:59 and 5:54)

I KNEW I couldn't be any faster in the 2nd interval, but I was hoping to still be sub-6 pace. (Uhhh... that's a tight 5.6 second window I placed myself in.) But I was hashed and it wasn't to be:

3:00, 3:01, 3:12(!!), 2:52 = 12:06.62 (mile splits of 6:01 and 6:04)

I was totally fine with that 2nd interval being slower. And yes, that 3rd split of each interval was up a longer (but nooooooot steep) hill. I love that workout.

SECOND IS A NICE LONG RIDE ON SUNDAY. There was nothing fancy about this workout. I didn't push it very hard at all, and just rode the River Road / Shepard Road loop that heads up Ramsey Hill and back down Summit to home. And I added in crossing the Mississippi at 35E and taking Big Rivers way south of 494. When I did a very similar ride 10 days ago (see the RED route in this link), I was pushing it substantially harder and I averaged 20.0 mph. I took it a bit easier this past weekend, and averaged 19.8 mph. Nice ride.