Training Tuesday: Love for the Step-Back Week

Sometimes as a teacher I will show a picture to the class and ask what inferences the students can make based on the clues in the picture.  What can you infer based on this picture I took Saturday?  (Other than that I need to clean up my apartment...)

Yup, nothing says "long run complete" than compression shorts, socks, tv, and foooood.  In this case a box of cereal.

I wrote last week a few times about how my legs were feeling dead tired and just plain beat up.  I was having some soreness in my quads and hammies, and my arches were crazy tight.  Needless to say, I wasn't exactly enthusiastic about my long run!  Our long run Saturday was a step-back--thank goodness!!  I guess if there's a week to not be mentally and physically on top of your game, that's the time.  However, I was a little intimidated by the fact that "step-back" now equals TEN MILES.  My God.  Ten miles has been my PEAK run during half-marathon training for the past 2 1/2 years.  Now it's a step-back distance?  Who am I?

While I tried to go to bed early Friday night, I woke up incredibly confused around 1:30 to a loud, obnoxious sound.  I walked over to my open window, thinking it was maybe a car alarm, but it got quieter when I listened outside.  Then, I opened the door to the hallway and, sure enough, the building fire alarms were BLARING.  In my sleepy stupor, I wasn't sure what I should do--only one or two other doors were open in the hallway; seemed like most people were either ignoring it, sleeping through it, or still out enjoying their Friday night.  As a rule-following teacher though, I knew I should get my tired little self down the stairs and outside *just in case.*  (I did stop short of banging on doors and forming a single file line of residents.  If only I had my emergency backpack and vest from school...)

^Both way too early to be up in the morning and way too late to be awake pre-long run...

Luckily the fire department showed up pretty quickly and confirmed that it was a false alarm.  I was kind of surprised about how few people actually went outside.  Maybe I'm a goody two-shoes, but I figured that if I went back to sleep, with my luck it really would be a fire and I'd be burnt to a crisp by now.  Better safe than sorry?

Anyways, long story, but you can imaging how sleepy I was rolling out of bed at 5:30 Saturday morning to make it to running group.  My legs felt tight and slow during the first two miles of our 10-miler, but luckily they loosened right up.  I ended up feeling great during the run!  And I can hardly believe I'm saying this but...10 miles felt *short*!  (Seriously, who am I?)  I never thought I would say that about a double-digits distance.

So long story short, all it takes is one good run to turn around a bad training week.  Success!  I am, however, a little intimidated by the 15 miles on the schedule for next Saturday...yikes!  Oh, and we were informed that all pace groups running 10:30 miles or slower will be starting their runs at 6:15 instead of 6:45 for the remainder of the training starting next Saturday.  Obviously that includes my back of the pack group!  Ughhhhh.  Too. Early.

What time do you usually get out to run on weekends?  I love my sleep, so it's always a struggle for me to sacrifice a weekend day that I could be sleeping in!  I know it's best with the summer heat, but still...