Marathon Monday: Training Week #4

So this past week was an interesting one in the world of "Becca and Brandon Train For A Marathon". First week back in the cold, sub-freezing snowy tundra that is Cleveland right now. Thank goodness it didn't actually snow while we had to be outside running, but there is about six inches of snow on all the sidewalks and there is no sign of it melting anytime soon (according to accuweather.com, the "real feel" in Cleveland is -1 right now, and it's only going to get colder!)

Monday's are generally an easier run for us, so we've decided to start taking Pele', our puppy, out on our easy runs. Last Monday, that meant trudging through 2 feet of snow in Bexley Park (I know, I know...dogs are not allowed). It blows my mind how different it is to run in the snow! I would invest in a pair of snowshoes, but living in the 'burbs of Cleveland doesn't really lend to the terrain always being snowshoe friendly.

Last Tuesday and Thursday were two challenging runs; one tempo and one speedwork run.

The tempo run was a 5 miler. We warmed up for a mile, did three hard miles - which ended up being slower than our goal pace...thanks, in part to all the snow on the ground, then cooled down for a mile. The speedwork came in the form of four 800m repeats. For those of you that think in English, not metric...that's about half a mile. Luckily, that's exactly how long our street is.

Here's our schedule for this coming week:

Hopefully it'll be a bit easier than last week. 

We're going to start doing our push-ups, sit-ups and squats this week too! AND, we're bringing back our daily morning yoga practice. It was a little too difficult to begin yoga again last week because I was still highly jetlagged...mornings were more difficult than they normally are! It's amazing how even just a short yoga practice helps get my day started off on the right note. 

I'm really looking forward to this week.

Oh, and one more thing...

LET'S GO STEELERS!

(source)

Peace, Love & Bagels,