Weekly Recap: Five Weeks Until the London Marathon

FIVE weeks until the London Marathon!

Yikes. I have to admit, I’m pretty anxious to get back into real training, especially with the race so close, but my coach is being very conservative. He only wanted me to run every other day this week and always short/easy runs. If I made it through the week running pain-free, he would start to add mileage back to my schedule.

So, here’s how the past week went in training for the London Marathon:

Monday: Pool running for an hour with 10×3 minute intervals in the middle at a tempo effort. Swam laps for about 10 minutes at the end. After work, it was back to the gym to ride the stationary bike for another hour with 15×2 minutes at a hard effort for about an hour total with warm-up/cool-down.

Tuesday: 3.3 miles of real running! I met my friend Laura for part of her run. It felt so awesome to be outside running…so thankful to be getting back to normal.
Wednesday: [solidcore] class before work. Easy 4 mile run after work with two friends. They came over to check out our new kitchen, which is virtually done! Our first visitors. I do plan to post some before/after pictures soon, as it was quite a transformation. We are still waiting on a few finishing touches though, but so close!

I’m so happy to have a normal kitchen again…especially so I can fuel my running with real home cooking! (Buy this cookbook HERE)
Thursday: One hour of moderate aqua jogging with my friend Laura, followed by about 10 minutes of swimming laps. Laura is an accomplished triathlete (from this guest post) and I realized when we were swimming laps just how slow I am. She basically lapped me multiple times! Impressive.

I was supposed to hit up the bike in the evening, but I was stuck at work until 8 pm, so that didn’t happen.

Friday: Easy 4 mile run with my friend Christie and Matilda the vizsla. Then I had a follow-up appointment at Orthology, where they worked out my shins/tendons again. My doctor said I have shin splints, for which her advice is as follows:

1. Stretch more. Obvi.
2. Use the heating pad AFTER a run.
3. Self-massage with a tennis ball along the shin every other day.
4. RUN. She said I can ramp up my mileage and run as normal. Woo-hoo!
   

Saturday: I was registered to race O’Gara’s Irish Run 8k. It is the inaugral race of the USATF season, for which our run club has a team. But since I just started running again, I didn’t think it would be that smart to race so soon. Instead, I got up extra early and ran 7.75 miles with Matilda and then zipped to get ready and head to St. Paul to cheer for the runners instead.

Great job Calhoun Beach Running Club runners!
Sunday: 45 minute “Surge Circuit” spin class at Surge Cycling in St. Louis Park. Full review to come! Then 4 easy miles of running.
Total: 19 miles of running, 2 hours of aqua jogging, 1 hour on the bike, 1 [solidcore] class, 1 spin class.  Another week with a ton of variety! If nothing else, this injury has definitely motivated me to incorporate different types of exercise.

In non-running news, I’d thought I’d share a few DIY projects related to our remodel. I know most people come here for running, but fixing up our cozy 1920’s Tudor has been a big focus of our lives lately, so I’d like to share.

First, there was this sideboard in our dining room that didn’t really match the kitchen/dining room anymore.
The interior designer we are working with suggested that we have it painted, but the quote for that was $800. So, Dustin did it instead!
He sanded it before he primed, then another sand between the primer and the first coat, then one last light sand between the first and second coat of paint.
I think he did a fabulous job! (Matilda was the supervisor, as always.)
Next, here’s MY contribution to our home improvement. (#soproud). We have a wine cellar in the basement (nothing fancy, just shelves, not temperature regulated).
We have talked about fixing it up, but I realized that it would probably be awhile before we do so with so many other competing projects. So, why not make a small change to improve it now?

Before:
Concrete- so cold for Matilda when she’s down there picking out a wine to pair with her Purina.
I decided to warm it up with FLOR carpeting.
FLOR: so easy Jessie can do it!

Just a small touch but I love the way it looks. I bought some of the cheapest squares available since it isn’t a well-traveled area of the house.

FLOR is super easy to size and “install”<– install is a generously used term. It was very easy.
Oh, and then I hung a poster too. Why not? Yay for Surly.
Although it was easy, it feels a little more finished now so I’m glad I did it.

I hope you had a great week in Fitness and Fitness Fashion! Local readers- have you tried Surge Cyling? Do you like spin classes? Recommendations on studios I should try?

Dustin’s guest post about pacing me for Phoenix should be ready soon…he’s writing it now. Stop by later this week. I also tried out “Wantable” which is basically Stitch Fix for fitness apparel. I’ll be reviewing that as well!

One more thing- congratulations to Laura W. and Vicki S. for winning a two-week trial to FitFusion.com from this post!