This week was a great week for training, one in which speed featured quite heavily. That might seem like a strange thing to say, considering that my week started on Sunday with a 20K run that was kind of slow and that made me feel a bit ill. I had run the 20K on virtually no sleep, in a state of terrible stress. The run itself wasn’t too bad, but it completely wiped me out. Still, I felt good for having done it.

On Monday I had a badly needed rest day. My legs felt OK, but I was exhausted to the core. In the afternoon I walked the mile or so to James’ school to pick him up, and it felt as if I was walking to the moon.

On Tuesday, I was scheduled for a tempo run. When our respite worker arrived and took charge of the kids, I laced up my shoes and hit the road. I ran 6K in about 36 minutes – well ahead of my goal pace. I was sweating profusely by the time I was done, and my bad ankle was aching a bit, but I felt good.

On Wednesday, I went to the gym for a go on the stationary bike followed by a weights workout. I realized that after just a few weeks of strength training, I was ready to graduate to heavier weights for some of the exercises. As I walked home from the gym, I felt that pleasant all-over ache that comes from a good workout.

On Thursday I didn’t do anything too intense – just a light run around the neighbourhood. On Friday I chose to rest instead of working out, because I had a race on Saturday morning.

On Saturday I went to the airport for the 5K Runway Run. A race report will be posted in a few days, but for now I will say that it was loads of fun.

The week was a success. The coming week will be focused more on distance than speed, and my Tuesday tempo runs will give way to the dreaded hill training sessions. Although my “A” race – the Scotiabank Toronto Waterfront half-marathon – does not include significant hills – the hill training does help immensely with speed and strength.

This is an original post by Kirsten Doyle. Photo credit to the author.