After a really amazing Week 7, Week 8 was still pretty decent. It was a major cutback, from 34+ miles to 25.

Monday 9/5: Rest day.

Tuesday 9/6: Skipped the 6am training group (and the accompanying 5:20am wake up call) and did 3 miles around my neighborhood. Went to the same turf field area as usual but didn’t do laps because I wanted a longer speed workout later in the week. Faster overall, but it was only 3 miles and I knew it would be a shorter one. Rock climbing at night with coworkers. I’m still new to belaying and accidentally shredded my hand a bit. I mainly did 5.6 and 5.7s.

Wednesday 9/7: Rest day. I usually do a Wednesday night run with a group, but it was Gabby’s going away party so we toasted to her in the Lower East Side.

Thursday 9/8: Solo speedwork night. I was debating between Prospect Park and Red Hook Track, but went where I would know the fast route home since it’s getting dark so early now. I did 4 mile repeats (along with a warmup mile and 1.6+ cooldown). The first 2 were great but the net downhill was working for me. Once I made it onto flat land and was a bit fatigued from the 8:50ish pace, the 3rd was really hard. The humidity was nasty. Some friends raced the Superfund Super Run but that thing starts at 10pm, which let’s be real, is my bedtime these days.

Friday: Rest day. I was indoctrinated to the New York Steakhouse experience at Smith & Wollensky’s (ok, technically Wollensky’s Grill) then got a fancy cocktail and live jazz trio at Bemelman’s Bar, which I’ve been wanting to visit forever. I wish I had taken photos but the lighting was all wrong.

Saturday: Prime Rib, half a bottle of wine, and a negroni do not lend themselves easily to a zippy early morning run. I instead opted for a 4.4 mile (gotta offset the .6 from Thursday!) slogfest in the sun and humidity after 11am. I am a fool. I ran each mile on the fast side but has to take some long water breaks.

Sunday: Long run day; only 11 because it was my cutback week. It was a humid slogfest if we’re being honest, but I ran the majority of it with people who helped take my mind off of it. After 2+ park loops, I misread my watch on the way home as 9.03 when it was really 9.93 miles and had a momentary freak out. How could I do 2 more miles when I was already exhausted and drenched in sweat? Fortunately, my Garmin beeped at 10 miles pretty quickly after and I knew I could pull out that final one. I had already turned off early from the group to get home (and have a smoothie) instead of getting coffee further from home. This was definitely my worst long run of my training cycle so far, physically and mentally. I hope that cooler temperatures prevail and my mental fortitude gets back on track.

Total: 25 miles out of a recommended 23-27.

The heat and humidity last week lent themselves to a quicker than usual laundry cycle plus some tough runs. I’m planning to race a half marathon in early October and try to PR. More details to come because I still haven’t bit the bullet and registered. I have some exciting travels coming up, which will mean long runs in exotic locales (and lots of delicious food).

 

 

And a photo from last Saturday the 2nd when I tried really hard to get the best Honeycrisp apples. Yeah, I’m basically inside of the tree.