Grandma's Marathon Training Week 6 (oh, and a winner too)

This week started out rough, but finished fantastic. So here's how it shook out:

On deck:

M - 4 easy
T - 8 tempo
W - 4 easy
Th - rest
F - 9 tempo
Sa - 12 easy
Su - cross

Reality?

Monday: Rest - couldn't bring myself to run in the heat.

Tuesday: 8 miles at a 10:41 pace with Chris. I skipped tempo (although I really did try to speed up the last 3) to run hills with a friend. It was a really nice run, in spite of the heat, and I was happy to have Chris' company. We finished just at sunset. Lovely.

Wednesday: 6.46 miles at a 10:55 pace. My friend Sarah was going to attempt 8 with me (it would have been a distance PR for her), but the heat got the best of us. We called it when we ran out of water. And truthfully, that was ENOUGH. I also missed my strength class because John had a night meeting. And I wasn't even a little sad about it. Feeling beat down...

Thursday: 7.01 miles at a 9:59 pace. I was shooting for my 9 mile tempo run, since James was off school Friday. This just sucked the life out of me. I started out in my neighborhood, but felt like death. At 2, I stopped, went home, got a drink, and headed out to the trail, hoping some shade would help. It DID help a little, but not nearly enough. I can't seem to get a handle on it. I either need to get better at this, or it needs to cool down ASAP. Ugh. (10:05, 10:05, 10:00, 9:35, 9:33, 9:49, 10:52 (gave up, lol))

Friday: Rest

Saturday: 3.2 miles at a 10:26 pace on the lakefront path with a bunch of Chicago bloggers! I took the train into the city with Kim, and we had a lot of fun! We met at the bean, ran, chatted, hit the Shamrock Shuffle expo and had lunch. It was really nice hanging with local bloggers, even if I WAS the old lady of the group, hehe. Maggie posted an awesome recap with links if you are interested. I'll just steal a few pictures :)

That afternoon, I was wasted. I passed out hard core on the couch, missing the entire movie we were watching. Guess I needed that...

Sunday: 12.01 miles at a 10:05 pace. I was lazy and couldn't get out of bed, so I missed running with club peeps. I waited until mid afternoon, and was worried about it being too hot AGAIN. Well, my worries were unfounded - what a GLORIOUS day. It was actually chilly! Wahoo! I hit the trail, and my legs just took off. I stopped looking at my watch, and just concentrated on keeping my breathing in check. I started taking quick walk breaks at about 9, but it didn't seem to hurt my pace a bit - my legs were dialed in to 9:40, and I could NOT make them go any slower. It RULED. Every run should feel like that. (10:40, 10:32, 10:25, 10:08, 9:51, 9:49, 9:45, 9:34, 10:02, 10:10, 10:12, 10:03)

Week total miles: 36.68

On to important things, like the WINNER! I took out all the people who specifically said they did NOT want to be entered. And as chosen by random.org, the winner is:

Sara from Domestically Challenged! Email me (bandthejs at yahoo dot com) and I will hook you up! Congratulations!