Sunday, October 4
I spent much of my workday catching up on support tickets from the weekend…in other words, a typical Sunday. However, I had some extra entertainment! The London Marathon held its postponed elites-only event, so I got to check in on the race periodically. The race was held on a closed course, with runners completing about a million (or 20, same thing) laps in St. James Park. It’s so weird to think that I was there last October! The race, in short: the weather was terrible, Brigid Kosgei won the women’s race as expected, Sara Hall had an amazing race, coming in second, and surprisingly, Eliud Kipchoge didn’t win the men’s race.
Fun work news: I received approval to slowly take on some work/side projects in a different department in my company! Since this is my first hi-tech role, I’m excited to be able to learn new things “on the job” and increase my portfolio of skills.
I’m not currently training with my running group due to the lockdown, so I texted my coach and asked for some workouts I can do alone. He gave me 3 workouts and suggested I do an easy 20-30 mins run on the other days. Today I chose to do one of the workouts: 3kms fast. I did a warm-up jog to the beach, completed the workout, and jogged home as a cool-down. My goal was to keep the pace under 5:30min/km for the duration of the workout. I positively split the workout (each km got slower), but overall I managed to average 5:27min/km. I was spent at the end of the run–I can’t believe I ran 10km in 5:04min/km back in January! I think I’d pass out if I tried to do that right now…
Naturally pushing through a tough but short tempo run means I’m ready to start thinking about my next marathon…right? The London Marathon ballot for the next year always opens right after the marathon finishes. The odds of winning a spot through the ballot is extremely low, but…why not? I’ll get my response/likely gentle letdown in January.
Monday, October 5
Today I went for an easy-paced 30 minute run, covering 4.6km. When I returned home, I had presents in the mail–my Ultra X Month of Miles medal, and a slip from the post office, telling me that I have a package to collect. In general, if there is no secure place to leave packages and the item is too large to fit into the mail slot, we receive a slip telling us which post office to go to in order to collect our package.
Afterwards, I took a zoom Pilates class.
Tuesday, October 6
I went to the post office on my lunch break to try and collect my mystery package, but the line was insane. I have an appointment scheduled for tomorrow (was unable to get one for today), so my curiousity will be sated then.
In the afternoon I had a physical therapy appointment, and am officially a physical therapy graduate! Hila said that I need to continue my exercises, but we are done with our appointments.
After work, I did my second workout of the week, an interval workout: 1.6km warm up 8 * (2min fast, 2min slow) 2km cool down
I saw that when I hit the halfway point of my workout I would be close to 9km, so I decided to add a bit of extra distance to my cooldown, to hit the number. I’ll still do an additional 9km run, but it felt good to hit this distance. It’s my newest longest continuous run since the marathon!
Wednesday, October 7
Today I learned that the Life Run, a now-virtual race that was postponed first from April to September, then to October 15 (and moved to a virtual event), has now been postponed to October 27. Why a virtual event needs to be postponed, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe so people can pick up the race packets? On a positive note, this means I have an additional two weeks to train!
I returned to the post office today–this time, with an appointment–and was in and out within 10 minutes. Lesson learned, I’m never going without an appointment again! As expected, the package was a race medal and bag from a virtual race (Worcester City Run 5K). Had the bag been folded a second time and put in a slightly smaller envelope, it would have definitely fit into my mailbox…
Cute medal and the shipping time was pretty quick!
After work I considered making this a rest day and not running because I was tired, but pulled through (nothing hurt, I just didn’t sleep well last night) and did an easy 30 minute run, covering 4.4km.
Thursday, October 8
Today I got caught up in an anxiety spiral, with the general state of the world, etc. To distract me/help pause the spiral, Lior and I took a 2km walk and went grocery shopping.
Friday, October 9
This was a chill day. Lior and I took a nap! Such bliss!
Saturday, October 10
I sucked it up and went for a 9km long run today. I felt slow and sluggish, but I was glad I stuck with it and got it done.
Total Distance: 35.6KM, Challenge 37/25 complete, 1 Pilates class, 1 physical therapy appt
This week started out great, and then mentally I faltered a bit. It happens, we’re in a pandemic!