Raleigh Marathon Training Week 12 and Race Reflections

As I mentioned in Friday’s post, I ran in the Rock N Roll USA half marathon in DC this Saturday. I am going to do a post about the race, but today’s post will include some of my thoughts about my experience running this weekend.

I’ll start by recapping the training week:

Week of 3/9/14- 3/15/14

Sunday 3/9: Quick Strength for Runners Week 5 (Part 1), 30 minutes reflexion yoga

Monday 3/10: 11.06 miles with 2 x 3 miles at half marathon pace (8:54 pace overall), PM-Body Pump

Tuesday 3/11: 6.14 miles easy (9:54 pace), strides, PM- Pilates for Runners DVD

Wednesday 3/12: 12 miles with 8 mile at marathon goal pace (8:56  pace overall), Quick Strength for Runners Week 5 (Part 2), 30 mins reflexion yoga

Finally a couple of warmer mornings this week!

Thursday 3/13: 8 miles easy (9:25 pace overall)

Friday 3/14: 6.1 miles easy (10:00 pace), strides

Saturday 3/15: 18.35 miles: 5.01 mile warm up (9:38 pace), 13.34 miles in DC half marathon (8:27 pace) (Official time/pace was 1:52:32/8:36 pace)

Total: 61.67 miles

Also, remember how I was going to do tons of glute work using an exercise band? Well I don’t know if I used it too much or my glutes are just getting SO strong but it broke this week! (Please note my sarcasm…they are not yet strong at all)

On the same morning that this happened, I went to pull out a pair of my compression capris and found this:

I guess somehow they got caught while in my washing machine. It was just not my day! I ordered a new exercise band and am able to use a different one for now to do some modified exercises.

Now, onto the race part of this post! I am so glad that I decided at the last minute to run in a half marathon this weekend. I know that some marathon training plans include a half at some point leading up to the race (maybe about halfway through the training). My plan didn’t have that and actually described it as being kind of tricky to include a race around the specific workouts and high mileage. When I decided to run this race, I knew I wasn’t going for a PR and it would probably be slower that most of my half marathon times. There were several reasons for this: I had already run 43 miles in the 5 days leading up to the race, I would be running 5 miles that morning before the race even started, and I didn’t want to kill my legs and need several days to recover from the race.

It was the perfect way to get in another 18 mile long run without feeling like I was running 18 solo miles around Baltimore like I usually do. I’ll admit it was kind of hard to start the race and not share in the excitement of “racing” like most of the other runners were expressing. I was excited to be there running, but also kept reminding myself of my purpose there that day.  I felt strong throughout the run and ran negative splits, allowing myself to push the pace to around an 8:00/mile for the last 3. It really made me want to train for a half again and chase a new PR! It’s been 2 years (exactly!) since I got my current half PR and running in the same race where I accomplished that made me want to break it even more.

Rock n Roll USA 2012

I am also surprised at how quickly I recovered from the run! As soon as I finished I drank a chocolate milk and ate a power bar. I tried to stretch a little but I was too cold and wanted to keep moving around. I drank water, nuun, and gatorade before, during and after the race. By the time I got home it was about 4 hours after I crossed the finish line. At that point I ate lunch and foam rolled for a long time. I will probably have a better idea of how recovered I am by the time I run on Monday, but today I am feeling pretty good! (I even considered doing an easy run today since there is more snow coming this week, but decided it was best for today to be a rest day). This upcoming week is the last high mileage week before the taper begins!

Do you have anything you do to recover quickly from a tough workout or race?

How was your week in running?

Anyone else race this weekend? How did it go?!