Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 2

My second week of training for Vancouver is in the books, and I felt like training went pretty well as other parts of life started to speed back up. I managed to make progress on a manuscript, get some lectures written, attend a couple of meetings, and to go to the opera to see a production of Tosca and out to a pub for pizza and beers with a couple of friends. Training-life and work-life balance are good -- if often more elusive.

Before the show: Damn us for not remembering we would need cash in order to have wine at the theater's bar!

What I wore to the opera: replete with sparkles and duck face

Monday - scheduled 3 miles easy. Actual 3 miles easy. Since we had MLK day off from school, I decided to run in the middle of the day as a break from writing. I kept the pace nice and easy at an average 10:50 min/mile.

Tuesday - scheduled yoga. Actual yoga. A friend and I hit up a 60 minute Ashtanga class at our local yoga studio. This was my first ashtanga class in a really long time and I was melting into a puddle by about 10 minutes into it. We did all of the standing poses in the primary series and about a third of the seated ones before winding down in an inversion.

Wednesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. As with the previous week, I was very sore from yoga and found taking a rest day quite appealing.

Thursday - scheduled 3 miles speedwork. Actual 3 miles easy. I'm hoping that soon I'll be in better yoga shape again and not still feel so sore 48+ hours after a practice. In exchange for keeping the pace at an easy 10:45 min/mile, I followed my 3 miles with some pushups, crunches, and gentle stretching.

Friday - scheduled 4 miles easy. Actual 4 miles with a few faster intervals thrown into the mix. When I got home from campus in the evening, I just really wanted to sit on the couch, drink some wine, and read a novel, but I forced myself to immediately change into running clothes and get in the miles. I wasn't feeling up to 800s but I did do several faster surges. My pace averaged out to 10:29.

Saturday - scheduled belly dance class. Actual belly dance class. This was the second class in the 4 week course that I signed up for, and it was a bit faster paced than the first class and involved some moves that were definitely challenging for someone who spends a lot of time hunched over manuscripts and doesn't have a lot of flexibility in her upper body and core.

Sunday - scheduled 7 miles LSD. Actual 7 miles at an average pace of 11:16 min/mile. The first six miles of this run were pretty awesome and confidence-building. The last mile I was tired and I was starting to feel it in my core. In spite of the sucky last mile, I feel pretty good about my longest run in the past three months and ready to build off of those completed miles in the weeks to come.

Total scheduled miles: 17.
Actual miles: 17.
Cross training workouts: 2.

So I feel like I had a solid week. I got in all the workouts on my schedule, and I ran all but one of my running workouts at a faster pace than their counterparts from the first week of training. Also there was opera. I'll take it.

Mad for Mozart

I mentioned in my recent race report that M. and I went to the Minnesota Opera on Saturday to see Mozart's Cosi Fan Tutti.  Normally, I would avoid a late night the night before a race (and normally I would watch college football on a fall Saturday), but I love the opera and only get to go once or twice a year.

We had dinner at PazzaLuna in St. Paul, and it was delicious. We didn't have a reservation and it was packed with other opera-goers, but we were able to sit at the bar overlooking the chefs' station and eat tasty salads, pizza, and pasta before our night of Mozart. After dinner, we walked the couple of blocks over to the Ordway Theater and indulged in some people watching before the performance. Although I saw opera-goers in jeans and more casual outfits, it was fun to see a number of elegant ball gowns and tuxedos. I wore a fun dress and took the opportunity to wear a pair of Fluevog boots that I purchased during my trip to Seattle last month.

The performance was fantastic. In the past few years, I have seen some very minimalist set designs and costuming - no doubt as a result of the fact that the arts have been slammed during this recession. This was not the case with this performance. It involved stage machinery that created paths and streams and lavish costumes. The soprano, Jacquelyn Wagner, has one of the strongest voices that I've heard. Though I enjoyed the faux tragic elements, M. and I both agreed that the comedic elements were done especially well. If you happen to be in Minneapolis this coming weekend and you like opera or have ever wanted to go, I highly recommend catching the Saturday night performance.

Have you ever been to the opera? Do you get all gussied up to go to the opera or the theater?