Saturday: Bachelorette and 9-Mile Run

Good morning – happy Saturday! This going to be a quick post because I’m heading out to a bachelorette party for my friend Kelly at Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut soon. I’m very excited!! It’s going to be such a blast.

I just got back from a 9+ run with Katherine in Central Park and despite the balmy 42 degree weather, it felt a little chilly while running. My nose was running so terribly. Here is our breakdown of the run:

Mile 1 – 9:56 (on our way to CP)
Mile 2 – 8:46
Mile 3 – 8:59
Mile 4 – 9:03
Mile 5 – 8:52
Mile 6 – 8:52
Mile 7 – 9:13
Mile 8 – 9:10
Mile 9 – 11:17 (on our way back from CP through the streets)
.21 – 9:57
Total of 9.21 miles in 1:26:18

This is actually more than my Marathon Training Plan called for for today – so that’s good – I’m right on track. Here’s yesterday’s recap:

For breakfast yesterday I had Kashi Autumn Harvest with almond milk and a side of cranberry and orange juice mixed.

Lunch was leftovers of Thursday night’s dinner and it was just as good.

My afternoon snacks were Chobani pineapple yogurt (my fave!) with granola.

And a handful of walnuts and raisins.

After work on Friday night I headed to the gym because my training plan called for a 5-mile “pace” run – meaning run it at the pace you would want to run at the marathon (for me that means to BQ). With my first marathon I usually took the night before a long run as a rest day, a light workout or cross training day. I decided to try and follow this new Higdon plan, but chose to run 4 miles instead of 5.

4 miles in 32:51

That was a pretty fast pace for me, averaging about 8:12 per mile, which is actually faster than what I would need in the marathon to qualify for Boston, but I was feeling good so I went with it. I must admit that running hard the night before a “long” run does not seem to work for me. I think I’m going to need to tweak Hal Higdon’s plan a bit to meet the needs of my body. I need more of a light, short run the night before a long run. I may move the “pace” runs toward the middle of the week.

If you’ve trained for any kind of race using a training plan developed by someone else, have you tweaked or changed it at all – how and why? Did it work out better for you?

After that I did some core work and some arm exercises with a 5-pound weight and headed home.

I decided to use up the remaining spinach gnocchi for dinner, since the package said to use within three days. They did not disappoint the second time around! Yum!

After dinner I also ate a handful of un-pictured chocolate morsels – they’ve been my obsession this week. Then I headed into read for a bit before bedtime (which was super early). I am totally into The Historian at this point and I’m only about 80 pages in, but I’m loving it!

That’s all for now folks – time to pack and get myself into party mode!! Have a great weekend everyone! 🙂