If you read this blog regularly, you know that I am training for the Mississippi Blues Marathon on January 9 (19 days from now!).  Last week, I said I was going to just get my 20 miler done this past weekend a little early, so I didn’t have to worry about doing it over the holidays.  Spoiler alert: it didn’t happen.

Details/excuses are below in the summary.

Another note: this week I’ve been listening to a lot of Katy Says as part of my podcast-listening experiment.  Some of my initial thoughts are in my podcast post, which I am planning on just updating so that it becomes a comprehensive post, rather than posting a bunch of updates every time I listen to a podcast.  There are a lot of things I don’t like about Katy Says, but I will admit that some of the concepts are interesting and even, in some moments, revolutionary.

Anyway, here’s my weekly summary:

Monday: Rest day (2.5 mile easy run to work)

Tuesday:  Soul Cycle + easy 2.5 mile run to work

Wednesday:  Easy 3.5 mile run + Orangetheory aka intervals and lifting.  Gosh, I love this workout.  (Sweetgreen for lunch pictured above!)

Thursday: Rest day (2.5 mile easy run to work)

Friday: Reformer pilates, and ice skating on date night!

Saturday:  Early in the week, I thought to myself Get this 20 miler done on Saturday. That will feel so good to be done.  You can veg out on Sunday or go to ballet or go for a swim.  Ha.  Starting on Friday I felt a little bit of a cold coming on… not only outside, but also in my sinuses.  UGH.  So I told myself I was really going to sleep in and then take the long run slow, just focusing on getting the miles done no matter how long it took.  However, my college basketball team was playing another closely-ranked team at noon and I needed to watch it.  So this was my plan: run outside from 11 to 12:30, head immediately to the gym to run on a treadmill from 12:30 to 2, and then finish up the run outside.  I figured it would be my last hurrah at the gym before my membership ends.  Around 11, I headed out into the cold, listening to the Marathon Training Academy podcast.  I ran about 4.5 miles without incident and was feeling good.  However, just as I was taking out my phone to capture a photo for this blog, my phone died.   For.  No.  Reason.  All of a sudden, I had no entertainment and no way to track my mileage.  Disaster.  I desperately tried to turn it back on, but all it would do was show me the little “please charge me” logo.  Having no other options, I ran back home to charge my phone, deciding that I would just run at the gym while my phone was juicing up.  When I got home and plugged the phone in, it miraculously healed and had 55% battery life.  Apple, I love you and I hate you.  I had only run about 6 miles at this point even though it felt like a huge journey.  I unplugged my phone, changed my damp clothes, and headed to the gym for phase two.  I clipped along at 6.2 mph for about half an hour, but it was tough to watch the game while running.  Being inside made me tired.

I ended up power-walking a lot, and by the end of the game, I had only added another 6 miles, for 12 miles total.  I shoved some pretzel sticks in my mouth and headed back outside.  My motivation was just completely gone at this point.  It felt like I had been working out all day.  I wanted to curl in a ball and drink tea.  After 13.5 miles, I walked home.  I’m going to try again this coming week.

Sunday: Rest day.  I dressed and was all set to head to yoga but then realized yoga had started 45 minutes earlier…

This Coming Week:

• Hiking or trail running because I HAVE A HANKERING (and it’s intense)
• Yoga with the fam
• Cool it on the cookies
• OTF/pilates my heart out before I head home to the OTF-less/pilates-less exurbs