The Rosy Wanderer

This is a catch-up post because I didn’t write during these two weeks of training. Not sure why, but it just slipped my mind.

Training Week 5: July 25 – 31

This week was hot. It was just humid and hot. My Tuesday and Thursday runs were lackluster. I felt slow and sluggish, but I got both runs done. I didn’t do anything on Monday, Wednesday, or Friday – just pure laziness.

On Saturday, I did a 16-mile “run.” Since my weekday runs were not great, I knew I wouldn’t be able to run the full 16. Instead of doing a run/walk pattern, I opted to speed walk the full distance. This helped keep my confidence high and not get discouraged like on my 14-mile run. The other change I made was to do loops where my house was in the middle. I first did 6 miles, and then I stopped at home to get some Nuun and a wet rag. Then I went out for another 6 miles before stopping at home again. Then I went out for my final four miles. Those breaks helped a lot. I did the full distance in 4:06 which averaged a 15:23/pace. Well above any goal pace, but Coach said it’s training and walking is beneficial. I was below a 15-minute pace until mile 7 – then it keep increasing. At mile 11, I was over a 16-minute pace. I didn’t feel great, but I was happy to be done. It was just so hot.

Training Week 6: August 1 – 7

Monday I did get in a 10-minute yoga session – but that was all. Didn’t even close my green ring! My two maintenance runs this week were okay. Tuesday I did a 3.2-mile tempo run which averaged a 12:31 pace. My tempo portion was only at 11:51, which really made me mad. Thursday I got in 4 miles on my drill day. Wednesday, I did my final bike ride before Pelotonia and completed 4.5 miles. I felt ready to go since a bike ride doesn’t feel like a lot of work…

The big highlight of the week was going to Columbus for 2022 Pelotonia! On Friday, I drove to Columbus for the event. On my way, I finally stopped to tour the West Virginia State Capital in Charleston. It was nice to get some walking in during a road trip, especially by seeing something that I find really exciting. I love to tour state capitol buildings. I’ve been traveling on I-77 between North Carolina and Ohio my whole life. I’ve always seen the beautiful gold dome of the WV capitol building but have never stopped to actually see it. I’m so glad I finally toured it!

Pelotonia was quite something! I have a full recap here, but a high-level summary is that it’s an event to raise money for cancer research. It was my first time riding 20 miles. Read about my takeaways in the recap because I definitely learned a lot!

Takeaways

These past two weeks really got away from me. I’m not sure if it’s the summer heat, but I was really sluggish and unmotivated. Pelotonia was a great experience, and I am really glad I got to do this with my brother. Now, it’s on to training week 7!