The Week in Workouts: October 21-27

This past week was the height of midterm grading season, so things have been busy around these parts. I did, however, manage to get in some quality workouts last week.

Monday - gym. I did 20 minutes of weights and then 25 minutes on the elliptical.

Tuesday - 3 mile run. This was a windy and hilly run through my neighborhood, but I was happy that I got out there. My pace averaged out to 10:47 min/mile.

Wednesday - about 25 or 30 minutes of cycling. Mark and I headed out on our bikes instead of hitting the gym since it was a nice afternoon, but our ride was cut short due to some mechanical issues with Mark's wheels. It was a bit of a bummer, but at least we got out in the fresh air for a bit.

Thursday - active rest. I got in about 30 minutes of walking around campus. I had planned to run in the afternoon, but since I opted to go to a volleyball game in the evening with a couple of friends I decided to postpone my run to the weekend.

Friday - rest. I did some housecleaning, but I didn't get in a workout.

Saturday - 2.5 mile run at a 10:26 min/mile pace. I was feeling good and would have extended it by another mile if I had known that the football game I wanted to get back in time to watch was going to have its start delayed.

Sunday - rest. I had a late night out on Saturday with friends that involved a delicious meal out, a visit to a haunted house with some legitimate spook to it, and martinis. The martinis hadn't really been part of the plan, and I was a bit sluggish all day. This sluggishness was magnified by the malaise that often accompanies grading midterms and papers.

If I want to hit my mileage goal for the month of October, I still need to run 5 miles before the end of the day on Thursday, so my workout goals for the upcoming week are to cover those running miles and get in at least two cross-training workouts. I'm also aiming to start using my makeshift standing desk a bit more when I'm working at home. What are your workout goals for the week? Do you have any fun Halloween plans?

An Unplanned Break

I hadn't intended to go almost two weeks without posting here, but in the days immediately following the terrible bombings in Boston and the devastating fertilizer plant fire in Texas. Most of last week I felt like anything I might write here might seem too trite and cliche for some, too self-indulgent for others, and maybe even too political for a few. I'm still trying to process all of it. I'm still angry and still sad.

By the time I felt like I might be ready to write again at all in this little space of mine, I had become inundated with work. It's the end of the semester, and I'm feeling the fatigue that comes at the end of the academic year. Between committees and grading and trying to get a manuscript off my desk and out to a journal before the end of the term, I've had little free time lately and what time I've had lately I haven't wanted to spend looking at a computer. I hosted a departmental/honors society event at my home so part of my typical bit of weekend downtime was used to clean my house both before and after the event. As this week started, I found myself still wading through my students' papers and through paperwork for several other service tasks. However, I did finally get that article sent out, after taking advantage of a grey and snowy day to power through some of the lingering revisions I had been putting off tackling and a final read through for copyediting and proofreading.

Ducks on a pond near my house

Although I wasn't blogging about it, I did also get some running done since I last posted. While I'm not quite where I hoped to be with my training, I had a solid 12 mile long run this past weekend and an 800 repeat session last week that gave me a bit of a confidence boost. I'm starting to feel both excited and nervous about the upcoming Vancouver Half Marathon. I head into taper mode in just a couple of days.

Vancouver Marathon Training: Week 6

As with the week before, this past week was pretty hectic. There was too much going on around campus and too many papers to grade to feel like I was able to strike a healthy balance of work, training, and life. I did the best I could, but it meant backloading my mileage and I'm very much planning to rest today.

Monday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. Since this was an exact repeat of the previous Monday, again it worked out pretty well that Monday was a rest day.

Tuesday - scheduled 4 miles. Actual 20 minute walk. I had a breakfast meeting, papers to grade, a lecture to write, and a guest lecture to give in a colleague's class in the evening.

Wednesday - scheduled rest. Actual rest. I considered making up Tuesday's miles here, but I was wiped out when I got home from campus that evening.

Thursday - scheduled 3 miles speedwork. Actual 4 miles speedwork. I did 4 x 800 with jogging recoveries. My pace averaged out to 9:50 min/mile.

Friday - scheduled 5 miles easy. Actual 3.3 miles easy. My pace averaged out to 10:42 min/mile. I followed it up with 20 push ups and some easy gentle yoga.

Saturday - scheduled yoga. Actual 3 miles easy at an average pace of 10:49. In the afternoon we also did a little bit of walking around downtown for Fur Rondy. The highlight was seeing the Outhouse Races.

Sunday - scheduled 12 miles LSD. Actual 11 miles LSD. I slept horribly and woke up congested, so I had initially talked myself into postponing this run until Tuesday, but then realized that the timing wasn't really going to be any better than, so I decided to go ahead and try to log the miles. I told myself to just run 90 minutes and evaluate how I felt then. I managed to keep going until I got to 11 miles, but at that point I was just completely out of juice. My pace averaged to a slow 11:41 min/mile.

Total scheduled miles: 24.
Actual miles: 21.3.
Cross training workouts: 2.

I'm hoping that this week will go a little bit more according to the training plan. What are your strategies for balancing training or getting in work outs when you have too many irons in the fire?