Hagg Lake Race Week

Guess what? It's finally time to get my race on! Hagg Lake 25K is this Sunday.

It's crazy how at one moment, you feel like a race is months away and the next, it's right there in front of you. This is "taper" week, but honestly, I'm not planning on changing much of my routine. I might not participate in the Thursday speed workout, but that's about it.

I'm excited to race again. It feels like it's been F-O-R-E-V-E-R! If only racing weren't so darn $$.

So, last week's training went pretty well despite not having much time to run. I woke up around 5:30 am each morning to get 2-3 miles or strength training in before my conference.

It definitely throws you off eating catered/restaurant food for all three meals, several days a week. I was so excited to get a serious sweat inducing workout in on Wed evening when the conference ended.

Sweat inducing workout: in 45 min I did a mish mash of jumping exercises (burpees, mt climbers, jump squats, etc), weights and interval and hill work on the treadmill. Somedays, it's all about the sweat and less about a focused workout.

Ooh, I got to meet a new blog friend Jen in person on Saturday! It was so fun to get to chat and run with her. Jen is about four months pregnant so it was perfect to take it nice and easy and talk babies, running and life.

There aren't a ton of bloggers in our neck of the woods, so it's fun to actually meet a blog friend in person. Most of the bloggers I read live many, many states away.

Last Week's Workouts:
Mon - 2.2 miles @ 8:14 pace
Tues - 3.16 mi @ 8:23 pace
Wed - 15 min weights before work, 2 mi treadmill, 25 min strength exercises
Thurs - 6.5 mi SPEED workout on the track
Fri - 4 miles easy run, 1 mile of it in Vibrams on the treadmill, 35 min full body weights
Sat - 6.88 miles @ 9:41 pace (5 miles with Jen). 30 min of yoga for the core
Sun - 11.3 miles @ 8:57 pace, 20 min spinning on the trainer *
This was one of those PERFECT runs where the sun was shining, my flat miles were fast and my body felt happy on the trails. 

*My secret to good recovery the past few weeks has been following my long runs with 20 minutes of easy spinning on the trainer. For some reason, this has been leaving my legs fresh and not sore so I've  just kept it up. Why mess with a good thing?

With tomorrow being Valentine's Day and all, how are you celebrating? 

I think this is the first year I didn't step into Tar-get just to look at their red and pink heart laden goods. Even as a single gal hoping to find Mr. Right, I always loved the holiday. I guess I just LOVE love and all that cheesey stuff.

We're making the manfriend's family recipe "Shrimp Thomas," which is this rich, but tasty rice and shrimp dish. Mmm... In fact, we made it for Valentine's back in 2010. Again, why mess with a good thing?

Whatever you do, I hope it makes your heart happy because you deserve it.