FARTLEKIN' GOOD TIME

Completely random intervals. They look kind of similar you say? Kindly GFY. Steps per minute (cadence) is above.

Last Thursday I did my first ever fartlek. A fartlek run is supposed to be a totally random, unscripted interval run of varied distance and pace. I tried my best to make it unscripted, however, the son of an engineer came out a little in me! Okay, it's all me, I'm not very creative and I like structure, so the fartlek was actually kind of hard. During the run I was planning my next move in my mind so it would look like it was random and I didn't plan anything. Oy.

Overall it was a lot of fun though! Some of it was truly random and I ended up running farther than I thought in a couple cases. I thought I would just run to the end of the street or something but I would end up running a street or two further. On most of the hills I ended up doing my jogging portions, but not all of them. All told the overall pace was below eight minutes a mile, and I'd say it was about half run, half jog, so in the end it was a super good workout. And honestly, now that I look at it, the fast running portions were definitely varied in length.

Friday was a day off to prepare myself for my long run on Saturday. Sixteen miles were on the schedule. Oh boy. I was going to go to the Coach Jim group, but I had the opportunity to sleep in Saturday morning and had nothing else planned until that evening. The weather forecast showed 32 degrees until noon, when it was supposed to suddenly warm up and be 50 by 2pm. My alarm went off at 7am and I looked out the window. Foggy, cold wonderland. Eff that.

I ended up waking up for good around 11:30am and farting around until 1pm when I finally went outside. While the fog cleared and the sun poked through (especially in the second half of my run), it never really warmed up like they predicted. Maybe 40 degrees at the most. I was a little cold on the run. I got about a half mile down the road when I remembered that I forgot nipple protection. Crap. Instead of turning back to get it, I just decided to play it by ear.

My sixteen mile route on Saturday. Pit stop at mile 12.

By about mile two I had convinced myself there was no way I could survive 16 miles without getting hideously bloody nipples. So I decided to cut my route short so I would swing home after 10-12 miles so I could apply some Body Glide. Those first twelve miles ended up being mostly in Fanno Creek (drained after last week) and they were great. I got back home after 12 miles feeling like gold.

After lubricating my chest I went back out for a "short" four mile loop. Most painful four miles EVER. Okay, maybe not, but they sucked! The first mile was great but then ALL the energy left my body. My whole body was tingly, and I could swear my left arm was super tingly (heart attack zomg). I felt completely drained and exhausted. Reminded me of the last few miles of the marathon. Honestly, those final three miles took FOREVER. I want to quit so many times, even convinced myself to a couple, but my legs never stopped moving. I ended up getting them done even though it was super hard.

Once the run was over my legs hurt for a couple hours. A dull throbbing pain. Felt like I ran twenty. Don't know why I was so exhausted! Yes, it was the most miles in a week I had done in a long time, but not by that much! Weird. Honestly, I think the five minute break to run upstairs to Body Glide myself had something to do with it. My body switched out of "run" mode thinking it was done. While tired, my legs feel pretty good today compared with how they felt yesterday.

Week two of marathon training begins tomorrow. Week one was a success!