Training for my first marathon was a struggle this week. The Super Bowl, having a friend in town, a Ragnar team meeting and overall fatigue were my excuses to not stick to my schedule this week. My goal was to practice yoga consistently, but that didn’t happen. I am only human, and all I can do is try harder next week. I’m joining the Training for Tuesday Link Up (via Tracy and Alyssa) this week in hopes of acquiring some much needed motivation from my fellow running bloggers.
Here’s how Week 6 went down:
Monday: Rest day. I did some light stretches, but mostly I just relaxed.
Tuesday: 5 miles. The plan was to do 4 miles at a comfortable pace followed by a faster last mile. I tried to do this but the last mile was tough. I cramped up; thus, my last mile was still pretty slow. My pace was almost 11 minute miles the entire time. But hey, I did it.
Wednesday: The plan was to do two runs totaling 7 miles, but I skipped the first one. I barely made it through my 3-mile run after work before heading to dinner with a friend who was visiting from LA. He was in town to cover the Super Bowl for work. We caught up over tacos and drinks at Joyride in central Phoenix. (I canceled out my run with the Blood Orange margarita. Yum!)
Thursday: Ragnar team meeting at Thirsty Lion at Tempe Marketplace. I did absolutely nothing active, which was disappointing, but I met my other teammates and became excited for the race.
Friday: Zero miles. I used the rain as an excuse to not run and went to Stingray Sushi with Graham instead. I regret NOTHING. The restaurant has revamped its menu since we’ve last dined there. There are now Latin-style options on the menu, including a crispy fish taco, which I ordered along with our sushi rolls and calamari.
Saturday: 5 miles. The best part was running into one of my good friends and chatting with her for a couple of miles. I made it a double-workout day by following up my run with a yoga practice from Yoga International. The class focused on opening the hips, and the apex pose was eka pada rajakapotasana, or one-legged king pigeon. Then it was time to head to downtown Phoenix for the Roots concert at Super Bowl Central, which was worth the effort to attend. According to my Garmin, I took 22,373 steps that day.
Sunday: Phoenicians awoke to find fog filling the Valley on Super Bowl Sunday. Graham and I went to Dreamy Draw Recreation Area to check it out. I then waited for it to clear up so I could run my 12-miler. This was followed by foam rolling and lounging on the couch for the rest of the day. My pace was about 11:30 per mile, and my knees started to hurt about the 10th mile. But I did it! Feb. 1 was also the start of the #1800MinuteChallenge started by Living in Yellow. I’m excited to take part in this effort to complete 1,800 minutes of exercise in 60 days. I finished the day with almost 30,000 steps, the most since I’ve had my Garmin!
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| Fog at Dreamy Draw. |
Weekly goal: 34 miles.
Actual mileage: 25 miles.
January steps and miles: I had 9 days out of 31 that I did not make my steps goal, and they were mostly on rest days. I ran 94.7 miles, which is about half the mileage I ran in all of 2014.
Marette Flora is the founder of Floradise blog and personalized gift shop. Marette is a passionate storyteller and creator. She attended the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism at Arizona State University and obtained a bachelor’s degree in journalism and mass communication.
She is passionate about creating helpful and meaningful things.