Training and Life Recap: Week 20 July - 26 July

This week was a little bit of a rocky one training wise.  Tripping and falling last weekend ended up being a little more of an issue that I anticipated.  Who would have thought that merely tripping while walking your dog could cause so many problems, but more on that in a min. Based on my training I have given myself a two week training cap, if I am not to where I feel I should be endurance wise and strength wise I will be pulling the plug on the Portland Marathon.  This is something, putting a time limit on training, that even though it is not fully decided has already been a hard decision for me to make because I've always prided myself on being tough enough to push through no matter what.  However, because of that mentality I have tendency to push to hard and do whatever it takes to finish and at that point doing so could have longer terms repercussions for my competing and running that I don't want to have.  The goal is complete an ironman next year and be able to run for the rest of my life; these are two goals that I don't feel are worth sacrificing for pushing through a marathon.  But this is still not decided so fingers crossed it won't be a decision I will have to make because I will be back kicking ass in two weeks. ;)

Week 20 July - 26 July

Monday 20 July

Started the morning out with physical therapy in order to fix the "jamming" I gave my back when I fell.  And yes sad to say but I did jam up my SI joint a bit when I took a digger.  Luckily that is a pretty easy fix with some quick manipulation, ultra sound, and anodyne.  I finished out the evening with some serious legs.  Since I have been working on growing my glutes and hamstrings in preparation for the Night of Champions.  Here is a quick snap shot part of my leg workout for this particular day:

5X12 Sumo Squats superset with 5X12 wide squats

5X12 Hacksquats superset with 5X12 reverse hack squats

5X20 leg press superset with wide squat jumps

5X15 hamstring curls superset with 5X20 standing calves

Tuesday 21 July

Went out for a morning jog in the morning.  I was still a bit uncomfortable from both physical therapy and being sore from falling.  Even though it was only four miles everything felt a bit stiff and could not really get the legs moving.

I finished the day out with a pretty great shoulder workout.  Shoulders are one of my favorite days to train. Wednesday 22 July

I took the morning off today because I went to bed not feeling great and as though I had gotten hit by a car.  Between my weak run, knee oozing and sore, and a bit of an upset stomach I figured I needed a little extra sleep.

Honestly I am not totally sure what was wrong with me today, I just felt really off. The weights were extremely heavy and motivation basically non existent.  I would love to blame it on the fact that my body was trying to fight off the infection that was raging in my knee for I did exactly what I know not to do (and what my amazing mother told me to avoid) was let the wound heal outside in, resulting in it becoming very infected underneath.  That being said by the time we got home this evening I had to spend the rest of it performing a wonder debridement of my wound.

I will say that cleaning my own wound was much more difficult that cleaning other peoples.  By the time I was done my stomach was a bit queasy and the hands a bit shaky, next time I still to dealing with other peoples blood and goo.

Thursday 23 July

Got myself out of bed this morning for my morning run even though let me tell you the knee was a bit sore.  Crazy to think that something so small, or what seems so small could cause so many issues.  But I was still running and that was what mattered. Since it was Thursday that means hammering glutes and hamstrings; which turned out to be an amazing workout.  Either it was a million degrees in the gym or I was retaining water like crazy because oh man did I work up a sweat. Friday 24 July

Well I totally slept through my alarm this morning.  It was scheduled to go off at 4:45 am and at 5:35 am the dog woke me up and the alarm was still going off (it goes off every ten minutes until I turn it off).  So apparently I am either very deaf or just was really tired. Oversleeping is always a bummer because then it makes me feel like I have to jam everything into the evening, which is one of the reasons I always do two a days when I am in training mode.  Thank goodness it is summertime and stay light much later (I think I have said that a couple times).

We met with our officiant today to speak with him about the wedding as well as for me to get a chance to meet him.  Brandon's great uncle, not sure if that is the right terminology: Brandon's dad's uncle, is going to be officiating.  After that we booked it to the gym for a late gym session in which Brandon lifted, I did some stairs and ran home. The run was really mentally and physically tough.  My body felt pretty beat up during this run and it took a lot to get myself through all eight miles, but I knew that I needed to keep pushing the limit a little bit in order to increase my endurance.

Saturday 25 July

8 am wake up on Saturday is a very rare thing in the Bowker/Lloyd household.  It is rare we make it 7 am on the weekends, though on the weekdays it seems a lot easier to do so, very backwards if you ask me.  Despite the later wake up we still had time to get our daily coffee, make an actual breakfast of delicious protein pancakes, and still make it to the gym by 9:45 am.  I was a bit behind on my plan this week so I was trying to play catch up by making today back and running day.  Well I was able to get the back day in but running was a no go due to some severe nerve pain; which was thankfully cleared up later that afternoon with a much needed massage.

Sunday 26 July

As per more normal on the weekends we were up this morning by 6:45 am and coffee in hand not long after.  Brandon's cousin was having a birthday party for the family, she turns 21 on the 28th, at 1 pm so we got an early start to the gym.  Well the plan for myself was to make up the shoulder day that I missed earlier in the week but as characteristic of the last couple of weeks I just did not have it in me.  Since Brandon was there to do cardio and abs I followed along suit, with 30 minutes on the stair climber. After the stair climber I changed and got ready to head out for my run.  The goal was to run for an hour and since I had been having a lot of difficulties lately I was a bit apprehensive about being able to accomplish it.  Here's the kicker, I decided to just run not to look at the watch (just to make sure I wasn't totally lollygagging) and not to think about anything.  So 10 miles later, and one really long hill I made it home to realize two things: 1. That was the longest run I've been on since May 2. IT WAS PAIN FREE : well as much as running can be pain free ;) While it was still a bit off of the times I am used to hitting I could not be more thrilled to have run that distance and do it with no pain!! It made all the ups and downs from the week totally worth it.

We finished off our Sunday with a lovely BBQ celebrating Brandon's cousin and my bridesmaid's 21st birthday with family and friends, a small amount meal prepping for Brandon and I, and off to bed to relax and catch up on ESPN.

I finished off the week at 27 miles and have a goal to get up to 35 miles for week four and 40 miles by week five.  If I can hit both of those targets with no pain than it is safe to say you will be seeing me at the Portland Marathon!!

What races do you have coming up? Have you ever had to put a time limit or a cap on your training to decide whether or not to run a race?