Marathon Mondays – Week 7 of Chicago Marathon Training

And just like that, week 7 of Chicago marathon training is over. Only TEN more weeks to go. CRAP. Will I survive this? I’m already terribly exhausted. LOL. Maybe I should have chosen a less intense program. Sigh. Oh well, go big or go home, right?

Scheduled Mileage – Actual Mileage

Monday (6 miles) – 6 miles 

For the second Monday in a row, I felt SUPER sluggish and wanting to die (I exaggerate, of course) during my easy run. BUT for the second Monday in a row, my friends stayed by me and kept pushing me to the finish. Yay!

Tuesday (6 x 800 m with 400 m recovery; 1 mile WU and CD) – (6 x 800 m with 400 m recovery; 1 mile WU and ~1.75 mile CD) 

Midway through my interval training, my stomach decided that it wanted to play games with me. This is when I found out that there were NO BATHROOMS available by the track I was running on. I ended up taking a break to find a bathroom and when I found one, my stomach decided that it was fine again. Sigh. I didn’t let that deter me though. I ran back to the track and finished the rest of my intervals.

I’m so fast, I’m just a blur. LOL

Wednesday (Rest) – Rest 

Of course I rested. Wednesdays are now a god send to me. LOL.

Thursday (5 mile tempo; 1 mile WU and CD) – 5 mile tempo; 1 mile WU and 1.2 mile CD

I was pretty nervous about this tempo run since I botched the last one. But luck was on my side this time. Aside from a tingling sensation at the bottom of my feet for the first three miles, the run went well and I nailed my pacing! Hooray! I ran in the evening this time to make sure heat wasn’t an issue and ended up running a bit faster than my goal pace (I was nervous about missing my pace again), but I’m calling this a win in my book.

Friday (5 miles) – 5.2 miles

I have never loved easy runs more. I made sure to make this run a relatively easy one because I knew the next day was going to be a long one.

Saturday (6 miles) – 12 long run miles

I ran my long run with Movin Shoes again because honestly, it’s just much easier to run with friends. I had originally planned on 11, but because we took a new route, I kind of got lost and ended up running a bit more than anticipated. It was still really fun since I got to explore new parts of my city.

Sunday (10 miles) – 3.6 miles 

I intentionally run a little bit more than my scheduled mileage each day so my Sunday can be low in mileage. Ran my 3.6 miles and called it a week. 🙂

Total mileage (41 miles) – 41.2 miles

NAILED IT!

Thoughts for the week: I’m super happy I nailed my tempo run, but this upcoming week will be another uphill battle for me. I know I say that almost every week, but it’s true. This program truly puts me out of my running comfort zone and it may seem kind of pessimistic of me, but as each week passes, I’m just wondering when I’m going to call it quits. This week, I will be jumping from 41 miles to 47 miles. My tempo run increases to 8 miles + 1 mile WU and CD and my long run will be 15 miles. YIKES! If I make it through this week, I deserve some new running gear. LOL. Any suggestions on what I should get? 🙂