Week 8/Mile 10

This is what I am looking at as I write this post. Just thought you should get to see it too!

Before I go any further, I want to confess something… Last week I told you we were going to run 9 miles on Tuesday… We didn’t. I flew back to Chicago on Tuesday morning at 7am. Patrick drove me to the airport and then went straight to work, and after such a whirlwind of a weekend, a run sounded like death so we excused ourselves and I ate Chipotle instead.

We began the training week on Wednesday, full force. We ended the week yesterday with a 10 mile run! It was cray. But it was awesome.

Since it was a short week, I thought I might also take a break from talking about running and say a few words about cross-training. As I mentioned last week, we did some yoga and weight work on Sunday and there was another floor workout on Thursday of the past week. If you have been reading since the beginning you know how I feel about interval training, and about body weight exercise. If not, coming at you plain and simple: I am obsessed. You can probably guess then, that these past 8 weeks have been a major change in my routine and while I am anxious to achieve the goal of all this training, I am also looking forward to getting back into stride; focusing on muscle tone and strength training. I get something out of it, I don't get from running. What can I say, push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and planks are what do it for me.

All of this running has resulted in a change in the appearance of my body, also. My legs and arms look slimmer, so I'm not complaining, but I've also begun to lose weight in other areas I wouldn’t mind keeping it on. My fear is I will begin to lose muscle tone in my upper body since I there is not much work being done in that area with running. Therefore, when I cross-train once a week, I focus primarily on arms and abs.

Furthermore, it is incredibly important to maintain a solid core when spending so much time running. When I bought new shoes recently the running expert at Fleet Feet Sports explained how important it is to maintain alignment. You want to avoid leaning forward when you run so the pressure remains in the middle of your foot when you strike the ground. Similar to just about everything else in life, equilibrium is of the utmost importance. If balance is off, the effect will trickle down to each element of the body. Core strength will prevent this.

Here is the workout I did on Thursday. It doesn't focus on one muscle group in particular but it's a good one:  Total Body HIIT Workout

Shay

Like I said, not much to report this week. The 10 mile run felt like a huge accomplishment. It also felt like a huge detriment to my ability to stand up for the remainder of Saturday, which was a bummer because I spent the day in Indiana at a family reunion. Today I feel like myself again. Watch out week 9!

Patrick

10 miles. There is something about the 10 mile mark that feels like a big accomplishment. If you would have told me six months ago I would be running 10 miles any time in the near future I would have said you were crazy, but here we are. I was not looking forward to it at all beforehand. I had been hurting pretty bad the couple days prior and I felt it for the first half of the run. I was thinking I was in for long day. However, around the third of fourth mile everything started to loosen up and I began to feel better. It was definitely a slow and steady run but the important part is that I finished. I think getting to the 10 mile mark was a huge psychological accomplishment as much as anything else. It makes me feel like the last 3 is very doable, the most important aspect I took away from yesterday's run and the training week in general. It is all downhill from here and I really think this is something we are going to accomplish!