Paris Marathon Training Week 3- Florida is HOT

I started this week of training in South Florida and I went into week 3 hoping to get all my runs and strength training in. I knew I could get all the runs in but cross training was going to be a challenge. I don’t have access to a gym while in Florida so I don’t have a way to do cross training.  

  
I loved this section in my believe training journal! There’s a two pages on this but you’ll have to get a copy of it to read the rest. 

Apparently the east coast didn’t get the winter memo and Florida was still blazing hot. This added an additional challenge to every run. 

Monday I was supposed to do 45-60 min of cross training but it just didn’t happen since I didn’t have access to anything. However I did go on walks with the dogs twice so that’s at least some movement. 

Tuesday morning I had 5 miles + 5 strides. I have a good loop figured out that runs through the neighborhood I grew up in and one across a major street that gives me just over 5 miles. I felt like I was slogging through this. It was just so hot, about 80 degrees with 90% humidity. So I went slower than I normally would for an easy pace run but I was able to do the strides at a pretty fast pace. I’m just glad I didn’t give up or anything, because that run sucked. I also did a little bit of strength training.

  
After the run I felt the above so I went and grabbed a couple donuts. 

Wednesday I had 6 recovery miles scheduled and I decided to make my way to the beach. This is where I do any of my runs over 5 miles. It’s super flat and you can get a nice breeze from the ocean. It was hot this day but the breeze helped a lot. I was in the middle range for my recovery run pace and I think I was around 11:25ish avg pace for this one. The last 3 miles were directly into the wind and that sucked. It was probably 15-20 mph winds and at times I felt like I wasn’t moving. Luckily I was still moving! 

  
Beautiful morning! 

Thursday was Christmas Eve and I had another 5 miles with strides. I did this in the neighborhood again and while I felt great on this run, and did about a 11:18 avg pace, I apparently really over did it. I got pretty sick after this run. I felt super lethargic and was really irritable and just felt terrible. I drank a Gatorade and some nuun and that helped. I just didn’t realize how much it took out of me. I took multiple naps and still went to sleep at a normal hour. 

  
Rocked the candy cane Procompression socks for Christmas Eve 

Luckily I felt better by the time my parents and I made to my aunt and uncle’s house for our Christmas Eve celebration. I snagged some good gifts (including a yoga bolster pillow so I can do some restorative yoga at home) and my family seemed to enjoy the gifts I picked out for them. It was nice to spend time with my family, I don’t get to see them as much as I would like.

  
Baby Saedy is so cute and I gave her this mini Baby’s First Christmas onesie. 

Christmas Day was a rest day! I spent the morning opening gifts with my parents and the pups. My big gift wasn’t under the tree (a treadmill) and I’m hopefully getting it delivered this week. We headed out to Clewiston for a celebration with my dad’s side of the family at my cousin, Megan’s house. We exchanged gifts and I was super excited to get a yeti tumbler from my cousins (after I talked about how much I wanted one at Disney with them the weekend before they found me one). I’ve gotten to spend more time with my cousins the last months and it’s been great to be with them! It was a great Christmas celebration.

   
   
Saturday was my long run day and I had 13 miles on the schedule. I wanted to start earlier than I had been so I wouldn’t be running when it was miserably hot. It also cooled off a little bit (75 instead of 80) and it was windy again. I convinced my mom to run part of it with me since I wanted to start before the sun came up so she did the first 3 miles with me. When I dropped her back at her car I drank some Gatorade that I had left on my car. I didn’t feel great the first 3 miles so I wasn’t sure if I would make it all 13. But after the Gatorade I started to feel better and I took a GU around 4.5 miles. By around the half way point I knew I was going to go all 13. I had to play dodge the puddles most of the morning since it had rained overnight and fortunately my feet stayed dry.   

 Not a bad view for a run (this was taken at the end, no time for pics while running)

I was going past my car again at mile 8 so I grabbed some more Gatorade. It was overcast all morning which I think really helped me a lot. It gets pretty miserable when the sun beats down on you and it’s 80 degrees. The breeze was also nice and not as bad as Wednesday when I thought I was going to get blown over. I took another GU a little after mile 9. Miles 12 and 13 were my fastest and were in the high 10s. The first 3 were in 12s with my mom, so this averaged out to be in high 11s. I’m so glad I stuck with this run because I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it the whole way. 

  
I met one of my fav people, Trudy, for lunch afterwards! And I may have picked her podiatrist brain about my previous foot issues.  

 Sunday was just 3 recovery miles and my mom was running with a friend at the beach so I rode with her. They do a run/walk so I kept going when they started walking and ended up doing 3.5 miles. We walked a part at the beginning that I didn’t count as part of the 3 but they did so by the time I got back to the car I had an extra half mile. Somehow that got me to my correct mileage for the week and I did 33 miles.

  
I had to get good bye donuts since we were headed to north Florida later in the morning. The red velvet with sweet cream and the glazed with holland cream were mine!

For a holiday week I’m pretty proud of how I did! I got all my running workouts in and did my glute/hip exercises. 

And I wanted to add a new feature to this training recap, a new song of the week that you can add to your playlists. For this week I recommend Jason Derulo- Get Ugly. It’s especially good for faster paced workouts!