This week was my taper for the Strawberry Plains Half Marathon. As luck would have it, I had guide training at work in the early part of the week and a hike in the middle of the week. While I didn't get much running in this week, I was able to stay active! Here was how my week in running went:
Monday, 2-1: Hiking guide training - approximately 3 miles hiked. We only did a bit of walking today, seeing the shorter and easier nature trails for short hour-long programs. We also went out to the historic homes in Elkmont and did a talk about lightening safety. It was rainy and cold today, so it was nice we got finished a little early!
Tuesday, 2-2: Hiking guide training - approximately 1 mile hiked. We learned some other important skills during training today - knot tying, setting up tarps, and running a few medical scenarios. I did a presentation with facts about the Appalachian Trail and one of our guides took us up on the AT at Newfound Gap for a short walk in ancient old growth forest. The three new guides, Bethany, Matt, and Myself finished out the day by doing a tag-team group hike around a nature trail showing off the new facts we'd learned.
The crazy group of talented people I get to call co-workers!
Wednesday, 2-3: 5 miles. I was supposed to have a hike today, but torrential rains overnight made our trail unsafe. I was able to get some housework done, and did a five mile run as a shakeout.
Thursday, 2-4: 8 miles hiking. I did a job shadowing today with another guide. We took one client up to Ramsey Cascade on a long day hike. Today is the first time I've ever been up to Ramsey's Cascade and been completely alone without anyone else on trail. I got to learn some more about different trees and identification during the winter, which was really exciting!
The beautiful Ramsey's Cascades!
Friday, 2-5: 3 miles. I took a quick 3.2 mile shakeout run in the warm afternoon sun, just to make sure my legs still felt strong and fresh after working around my strange schedule this week!
Saturday, 2-6: 13.1 miles - Strawberry Plains Half Marathon. I really hoped to run not only a PR for this race, but also to run a sub 2-hour half marathon. Around mile 10 I figured out this wasn't going to happen and was absolutely deflated. I did run my last 2 miles very strong, but ended up running 2:05:10. I cried a little, but after I got some food I rallied for a proper finish photo. I'm really, really sad about my finish time, as I had really trained hard and remained injury free for this race. My next half isn't until December 2016, so I have plenty of time to whittle down my time.
Sunday, 2-7: Active rest. All I'm doing today is walking my dog and stuffing my face with food during SuperBowl Sunday! Next week I'll be running faster and adding in some extra mileage as I ramp up my marathon training!
In case you missed it, I still have an SLS3 Dual Pocket Running Belt giveaway running until 2-9-16 from a post last week. Click here to enter and, if you just can't wait to see if you won, use the link to purchase one from Amazon on sale!
I am contemplating signing up for a 30K at the end of February, but as for now my next race is the Knoxville Marathon on April 3rd, 2016. What are you training for? How was your week in running? Leave me a comment!
