Mmmm, Friday.  I have the hardest time getting it together to go to work on Friday, but there’s so much to do.

Fridays around here are going to be mostly dedicated to running posts.  Right now, I’m running 3-4 days per week, usually M/T/Th/S.

This week’s running was not the best.  I missed my Monday run, which was actually the most ridiculous part of my week.  We finally had cooler weather, although it was pouring.  I went to get my clothes on, and boom, no shorts.

Tuesday was better than expected – we did 5.5 miles from Logan Circle up to the Memorial Bridge.  I pushed a little too hard at the beginning, which ended up screwing me at the hill up to the top of the bridge to get to the turnaround.  But, it was kind of worth it?  I was talking to a couple guys in our group about FIFA and Blatter’s resigning, and getting out my feelings.  Unfortunately, those guys run an easy 8:30, which is NOT my pace.  That being said, Tuesday was also my first time ever running in shorts and a sports bra!!!  I lost about 40 lbs between August and December, and I finally feel mostly confident enough to do the shorts and bra thing.  It’s been a really hard mindset for me, because the women in our group who do run in shorts/skirts and sports bras are tiny tiny, and I am not.  But, they’ve been really encouraging, and H promised me I didn’t look like a beached whale.

Thursdays are track nights.  We do speedwork as a group, because most of us are trying to get faster, and quite a few of our group have grabbed their Boston Qualifying times, and some of us are trying to eventually get there.  I’m on the 5 year plan for my BQ.  This Thursday was relay night, which means that we were broken up into teams and we raced each other.  Unfortunately, I haven’t been at a track workout in quite some time.  We started out with a 1600m time trial, and halfway through, I got some bad cramps and pulled off.  Instead of running the relays, I opted for cheer squad.  So, my workout last night should have been 1 mile warm-up (to the track), 1600m, 200m, 200m, 400m, 1 mile cool-down (back to the store) and I got…1 mile warm-up, 800m fast, 400m easy, 1 mile walk back to the store (a good friend of mine was struggling, so I walked with him.)

It’s okay.  There are good days and bad days and sometimes you have to remind yourself not to come back to track workouts on race days.  Seriously, I’m full of poor life choices.

Marathon training officially starts on July 20, so I have some time before I need to be in really perfect shape for this.  So, for now, I’m going to get back to running M/T/T/S, and then as I get closer, I’m going to need to add in a second weekend run.  My Saturday runs are going to be marathon pace, and since I’m shooting for sub-5:00:00, I’m going to need to run those at about a 10:00-11:00 per mile pace.  My last 10 miler paced out at 9:48, and my half PR is sitting at a 9:59 pace, so I’m thinking that’s pretty doable.  And hey, if it turns out that I can run a full at a 9:59 pace, that gives me a 4:21:45 finish!

If you’d like to follow my marathon training plan, you can do so by clicking the pink menu button at the top of the page, and then clicking on the Training Plan/Running Calendar page.  I’m working on getting everything set up in that calendar, but it takes some time.