I took one full day after the half marathon to rest. Looking back on last week's workouts and how brutal they felt for me I wish I had taken Tuesday off as well like hubby suggested but I'm a bit stubborn sometimes. And taking more than one break makes me feel really lazy!
Tuesday- 5k on the treadmill 31:45 (10:15 pace)
Wednesday - kickboxing, my first time in this class. It was ok. I felt uncoordinated! Plus 20 minutes on the ARC trainer.
Thursday - rest
Friday - 2 miles outside 21:00 (10:30 pace)
Saturday - 5 miles outside 54:19 (10:52 pace)
The treadmill 5k went well. I was still a bit sore in my thighs (hello half marthon hills!) but I quickly loosened up after a few minutes on the treadmill. I was able to maintain my pace with no problem.
I liked my Wednesday kickboxing class ok. I just felt a bit uncoordinated with some of the moves. I won't get to make this class often because it is on a day/time when I am still usually at work. I wish I could rearrange my schedule somehow so that I could get to the class but it just is not possible. I think if I took it once a week I would pick up on the moves and not feel so clumsy. I also did a 20 minute workout on the ARC trainer. I love the ARC trainer and plan to get on it more as part of my cross training. You can burn some serious calories on that thing!
Friday and Saturday's outdoor runs were tough. It is beginning to get a bit hot here and already VERY humid. I actually even said I wish it was still winter out! My lungs struggled on both of these runs though Friday's was much easier than Saturday's run. On Saturday I had actually hoped to get in 6 miles but due to time constraints (I had a hair appt!) we decided on 5 miles. At about 2 miles in I was done. I really just wanted to be back at the gym and done running for the day. It was that hard for me. I couldn't maintain what I thought was a decent pace. I was struggling to breathe between the pollen and humidity. I was struggling mentally because my asthmatic hubby was not struggling at all (or so I thought) and I couldn't figure out WHY I was having such a hard time if he wasn't. I was also having stomach issues which if you're a runner you know basically sucks, especially when you are out on a trail. I was able to control it and as bad as I truly wanted to stop at 2 miles (after taking a little break) I told hubby, "Let's just go to 2.5 and turn back. We came to do 5 and as bad as this is sucking for me I am going to do what I planned."
So, we did. It wasn't pretty. I was worried about time but my awesome hubby just told me to stop worrying about it and reminded me I had just ran a pretty tough half marathon less than a week before. He was right. I was still trying to recover and it does take the body (or mine at least) a little time to get over those types of races. I couldn't help but think (an even say out loud) though how I hated that the 5 miles on Saturday was so much harder than the half marathon was for me. Really 5 miles compared to 13.1 should be easy but it wasn't.
It is going to take my body some getting use to the heat and humidity much like it took getting use to the cooler temps of fall and winter. I'm not going to stop running because I still have too many running goals to meet! I am still working on figuring out what I want to do with my workouts though. Tonight I am planning to run and do some weights. I am going to try spinning sometime this week and will hit BodyPump at least once.
Do you take a break after a long race like a half? If not, what is your running schedule like the week following? If yes, what do you do?
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