I feel like a broken record talking about how I’ve been slacking on cross-training and need to do better with it. (So I won’t say it again).

I did pretty well on my running workouts this week. “Pretty” meaning that I held on tight to my track workout (and it was mile repeats! I KNOW!), and I feel pretty badass about this morning’s 18-miler. The tempo run was meh, and a mile short, but whatevs. At least I didn’t go on a mid-week bender this time! (Baby steps, haha…)

Since I had several, ahem, rest days this week, here’s how it went:

• Speedwork: The plan called for 3 mile repeats at 8:11 pace. Mile repeats a little bit make me wanna barf. I really like speedwork except for mile repeats. I did this workout, stayed right on pace, and had another 2 miles for warm-up and cool down. It felt sooo much better than a few weeks ago when I did the same exact workout. Definitely stronger. Still not a fan of the mile repeats, though.
• “Tempo” Run: This is in quotes because it is still a tempo run, but not exactly the tempo run I had planned. I did a nice conversational 2 mile warm-up, then ran 3 miles at 10k pace. Aaaand that’s it. I was totally over it.
• Long Run: Truly the highlight of my week (seriously, but I might not have said that at mile 15…). This coincided nicely with the NYRR Long Training Run #2. I ran 3 miles before the event in Central Park, then banged out 15 in the park (3 5-mile loops to avoid Harlem Hills). My training plan called for 9:30 pace. I thought this seemed a bit quick for my long run, so I decided to just get in the mileage and see where the pace wound up. I ran the first loop on my own – when I got to the transverse, I saw that I was roughly around a 9:30 pace, and ran with that pace group the second time. Solo the last loop taking a few more water breaks since it was getting hot. Felt great at the end. Averaged 9:33/mile. Perfect.
• Total miles: 28. Almost want to go out and slog for 2 miles just to get to 30. Almost.

As I said last week, week 5 was a bit more “back to normal” for me. While that means I still found ways to slack on cross-training, I did not party like a college kid mid-week. Or go to a wedding. So sorta normal, I guess.

Notable: I did not drink at all the 2 nights before the long run. I’m not talking like drankin but I even skipped a glass of wine w/ dinner. This may be a good move. Also, I enlisted friends come over and help me carbo load on Saturday night… they were not running at all on Sunday, but who doesn’t love a good carb load? And it seems all the more justifiable when shared with others, right?

Week 6 will bring a whopping 20-miler that I will do in conjunction w/ the Bronx Half-Marathon. Not sure how I’ll split the additional 7 miles yet, but we shall see. Other than that, I think I fueled really well this week – the 1-2 days before the long run, during, and after. I’ll focus on that again next week. And we’ll see about the cross-training, but it can only get better after last week.