Marathon Training Week 7/8

There was no update last week because I was in CUBA soaking up some vitamin D and pina coladas! I will recap my trip later, but for now let's talk marathon training for the past couple weeks.

Total kilometers run: 326.1km
Week 7: 48.1km
Week 8: 51.6km

Week 7's runs:
Tuesday: 9.5km easy with sprints at end (6:28 min/km avg pace)
Wednesday: 10km tempo (I don't remember the average pace as it was on the treadmill)
Saturday: 6.8km easy (6:54 min/km avg pace)- IN CUBA!
Sunday: 22.5km steady (6:49 min/km avg pace)- IN CUBA!

Week 8's runs:
Wednesday: 9.5km easy with sprints at end (6:41 min/km avg pace)- IN CUBA!
Friday: 10km tempo (6:29 min/km avg pace)
Saturday: 8km easy (6:55 min/km avg pace)
Sunday: 24.1km steady (7:18 min/km avg pace)

What an exciting couple of weeks it has been! I did my first (and hopefully last) treadmill run of my training thus far. It was late because I was packing to leave for my trip the next day, and it was freezing rain out too. I was within an inch of not going at all when I reminded myself that I might be even lazier in Cuba and not do ANY of my three scheduled runs while I was there so I better do what I could before I left. So I went! and it was hot and boring and sucky...but I survived :)

Oh, and thank you for all the well wishes on my knee and shoulder from week 6! Everything healed up nicely!!

And then I left the cold and snowy Canada and flew off to Cuba for 6 days with my friend Ginny and her entire family!! We had SO much fun. And I actually stayed on track with my runs! I just would get up at 6:30am so I could head out around 7:00am since it was so hot and humid there. The first day Gin joined me for a bit of the run, but after that I ran solo. We were staying in Varadero, which is extremely safe and full of tourists. The only issue I ever had on my runs were stray dogs and hills! Oh those hills. My poor legs aren't used to them since Toronto is so flat. But the view sure helped keep me going. And the thought of my victory buffet/pina colada :)

Then it was back to Canada, which had gotten even more snow while I was away, making my runs a little slushy and cold. Sunday I decided to head east instead of my usual westwards and it was SO much more snowy. I ran probably 15km of my run literally through the snow. I am going to use that as the excuse for why I ran so slowly. My legs hurt!! But next week spring is supposed to suddenly hit, so this is probably the last snow run of the year!

And with that- I MADE IT THROUGH WINTER TRAINING!! Sure helps that it was one of the mildest winters ever and we had so little snow. But yay!! bring on the spring!!