Army 10-Miler Training: Week 3

Three weeks down -- six to go! I'm 1/3 of the way done with 10-Miler training, and this week was felt exceptionally good!

Monday

Plan: 3-5 miles at an 8:18-8:48 pace

Actual: 4 stroller miles in 33:18 / 8:18 pace

This was the last day of my vacation time, so I enjoyed some relatively relaxed stroller miles with Grace. We stopped a few times to pet dogs and swap out toys, but overall a good run!

Tuesday

Plan: 16 x 400's at 90-100 seconds each

Actual: 2 mile warm up, then 12 x 400's with a 200 recovery (about 60-90 seconds) between each. I ran with a teammate and by the 12th rep, we were a) sucking wind and b) just hitting 100 seconds. Since we knew our performance would only deteriorate from there, we called it at 12 reps. We finished with a mile cool down for a total of 7.5 track miles.

Wednesday

Plan: Lift

Actual: Short on time, so I did a quick 20-minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of:

5 deadlift

5 hang clean

5 front squat

5 jerk

6 lunge (3 per side)

with 65 pounds on the bar. Afterward, I did ab and back work and was in and out of the gym in under 30 minutes.

Thursday

Plan: Tempo run: 10 minutes warm up, 6 miles at a 7:24 pace (:30 seconds faster than my race-day goal of 6:54), 10 minute cool down.

Actual: I CRUSHED it! I ran my 6 miles in 7:13, 7:11, 7:12, 7:15, 6:54, and 6:46 for an average of 7:05. It's been 4 days and I'm still riding that high!

Friday

Plan: 3 recovery miles and lift

Actual: I did a full-body lift with some of my Soldiers and took off for my recovery run. 1 mile in, I called it and moved to the gym to finish on the elliptical. After Thursday's mileage (8 total), my knees needed a break!

Saturday

Plan: 9 miles

Actual: Just that! 9 miles at an 8:29 pace. Nothing special about this one. It felt comfortable the entire time, which was exactly what I was going for.

Overall: My goal this week was to push through tough workouts, and that's exactly what I did on Tuesday and Thursday. I'm so proud of those efforts! As some people ramp up mileage, this 29.5 mile week was about my max. I'll be looking to convert some recovery miles to cross training (bike or elliptical) over the next 6 weeks to save my knees!