It's Crunch Time

I fell out of the habit of posting my weekly recap and weekly plan.  So now, with 7 weeks to go before the Chicago Marathon, it's crunch time and I need to really ramp up my training.

Here's what I did last week:

Monday - 5 miles
Tuesday - REST
Wednesday - Track workout - 2 x 800m; 8 x 400m
Thursday - REST
Friday - 3 miles
Saturday - REST
Sunday - 10 miles

Total Mileage for the Week - 24 miles

So, last week was a little weak.  I didn't run Thursday and Saturday because I thought resting my legs would help them not feel so tight.  I did a lot of foam rolling too.  But last week is over and now it's time to just look forward.  I talked to Angela on the phone on Friday which got me really pumped for the marathon again!!! And I've been talking to Alex about training a lot lately.  She has been doing awesome with her training for Columbus so it has helped motivate me too.

Here's my plan for this week:

Monday - 6 miles tempo
Tuesday - 6 miles
Wednesday -Speed Workout
Thursday - 6 miles
Friday - Cross Train
Saturday - 18 miles
Sunday - 6 miles

Total Mileage for the Week -  ~50 miles

The total mileage for the week might be a tad aggressive based on my training so far, but I've done it before.  I actually just went back through my running log from 2010 again (when I was training for Columbus) and I did have one 50-mile week right around this point.

I still need to work on this whole pace variation thing a bit more instead of always running my 8 minute pace.  I'm going to try to make today a tempo run.  I'm thinking a mile warm-up, 4 miles at tempo pace (hopefully 7-7:15), then a mile cool-down.  It's supposed to be close to 90 this afternoon, so it might be a little rough.

For Wednesday's speed workout, we have 400s on the schedule.  I might switch that up since I just did 400s last week and do something like mile repeats instead.

Some other goals for the week:

• Do core-work every day.  Angela had made a good core work-out routine that I will try to follow as closely as possible.  She also had a pretty good arm strength training routine too that I did a few times.
• Bring my lunch every day instead of eating out.  I bought (actually my mom bought - perks of going home to do grocery shopping with her) some pre-made salads, and all the fixings for some quality turkey sandwiches.  (As I write this, I am talking to my nutritionist friend Steph who is giving me some good snack ideas too!)
• Figure out a fundraising idea to raise more money for my Chicago Marathon charity team - the Crossroads Runners of Old St. Pat's Church

I have a few other things to get done this week and a few social things, so I think this is going to be a really busy week!  But then a 3-day weekend!!  That will be my motivation to get through the week and get all these runs done.  By Saturday at like 10am, I will be feeling more accomplished and ready to enjoy the weekend.

What are your goals this week?