It’s PEAK WEEK!!! Work is insane with Satellite 2020 less than two weeks away and everyone freaking out about the Coronavirus. But I did find some comfort in sticking to a routine and following my training plan and overall had a pretty good week. At least until I found out that the Paris marathon was likely to be canceled. But more on that later. For now, here is how the week went:
MONDAY
I walked out my apartment at 7AM ready to workout at OrangeTheory when I realized I was signed up for the 4:30PM class. Oops. That meant I did back to back OTF class and Pacers 14th Street run… not ideal but I lived. It was a beautiful day for a run and took it easy covering just 3 miles at an easy pace. My friend Christina (check out her wine blog) had one of her best run ever and that was awesome!
TUESDAY
Another gorgeous evening for a run. I ran to Pacers Navy Yard and then with the group for a total of 11.5km/7.1 miles. Alexandra from the Berlin marathon was there so it was nice to catch up too!
WEDNESDAY
I had been looking forward to the 12 minute benchmark run at OrangeTheory Fitness for weeks and I crushed it! I improved my distance from 0.75 miles in September to 1.27 miles and I feel like I could even have pushed myself a tad more… Feels great to see some concrete progress though!!
Of course, it was also New York marathon lottery day and I didn’t get in. Womp womp.
THURSDAY
It’s a known fact that marathon training and having a social life do NOT go hand in hand. My plan called for a 7 mile run but I was also invited to preview Echo Park, a new beer garden and fireplace bar on U Street. So I did what any normal runner would do and run commuted home so I could do both 😉
Echo Park is a joint venture between the Hilton brothers and Andy’s Pizza and those slices of Burrata Margherita and negroni on draft felt really good after my run!
FRIDAY
Rest day ahead of my 18 miles run Saturday!
SATURDAY
The November Project’s route this week was just 9 miles and I had to do twice as much but given where it was set to end (Woodley Park) I felt pretty good about how to extend it on my own through Rock Creek Park, so I did and ran 30km!
One of the highlights of the run was running through the Reflecting Pool which is empty at the moment for cleaning. The low however was finding out that France was banning all gatherings of more than 5000 people to help contain the spread of the corona virus and that the Paris marathon was one of the first victim of that rule. Questioning whether the race you’re training for in the middle of an 18 miles run is not the greatest motivator… Also, it was cold and windy, so it was just a tough run altogether.
I barely had time to rest before partaking in on of my favourite fun run of the year, the H Street Runners’ Running of the Street Car. I failed to outpace the street car last year and based on the fact that I was running 18 miles earlier in the day, I didn’t think I would this year either. But it was still fun! If you’re in DC and want to join the H Street Runners for some fun runs, they have a Pi Day run and a St Paddy’s Day run and Happy Hour on the agenda for March.
SUNDAY
Every week I tell myself that I need to do more yoga and every week I don’t. Until this week!! I took the 5PM community class at Shaw Yoga, which is a donation based class and it felt class and now I’m wondering why I haven’t been doing more yoga this whole time lol
This week I added 66.4km / 41.3 miles to my Paris marathon training bank and have now ran more than 400 km / 250 miles so far this year (I ran a total of 243.5 km / 151.3 miles in February). I feel pretty good about where I’m at right now and I feel really good about the week I just had, managing to be social AND stick to my training plan, which is not necessarily an easy feat…Now I just need to survive another high mileage week and a crazy conference now! And of course, keep my fingers crossed that the Paris Marathon doesn’t get canceled. I would be so upset.
What I’m reading/watching/listening to: I watched the second half of the debate in South Carolina. What a mess. And Ali Wong’s Dear Girls proved to be a great companion for my runs this week. Definitely a bit raunchy, but i you watched her Netflix special, you probably expect that.
What I’m eating/drinking: I tried Andy’s Pizza for the first time at Echo Park’s opening preview and it was really good!
I had even more pizza the next day when Cecilia, Kaoru and I went back to Tonari. We tried the Kewpie mayo pizza with corn pizza this time and it was really good. Sadly, I can’t share any pictures because the table where we were seated was in such a dark spot that I needed the flashlight app on my phone just to read the menu 😦
What I’m looking forward to on week 9: One peak week down one more to go… and then tapper time!! I’m going to continue to train according to my plan but start looking for potential alternative marathons. I’ll be in Paris regardless of whether the marathon is maintained April 2-12 so I’m looking at marathons within driving distance of D.C. the weekends of April 19 or 26. I have a half marathon in Maine on May 9th but I’m not looking to extend that to the full, nor do I want to upgrade to the D.C. Rock’N’Roll full because that course if terrible (though the timing would be good…) If you have any suggestions, I’ll all ears!!
Back to linking with Kim of Running On The Fly and Deborah of Confessions of a Mother Runner for their weekly wrap-up. Check out everyone’s posts and join the community if you’re blogging about your fitness journey too!!