Weekly Recap: 6 Weeks Until the Antarctica Marathon

Another wintry week of training for the Antarctica Marathon, while living in Minneapolis!

Here’s how everything went this past week:

Monday: 8 mile run commute into the office. Slippery, snowy, same old story in Minnesota in January.

Tuesday: Rest day! I had a work event at a cooking school; it was so much fun!

Wednesday: I was awake and in my running clothes, ready to run commute. I took my bag out to Dustin’s car to find that we had received a few inches of snow. A few inches of snow on top of the existing ice made for treacherous conditions; I slipped just on that short walk to the garage. So when my friend Christie texted to cancel, I decided I probably shouldn’t risk it. Instead, since I had all my stuff packed, I rode to work with Dustin at 6:30, showered at the gym at the office, and then ran HOME instead. 10 miles total. I was supposed to do 6 miles at a slow-ish tempo, but that didn’t happen. The trails were still too slippery and I did what I could, but it wasn’t at the tempo pace my coach wanted. But I got in the miles.

I packed two left gloves, which I guess is better than two left shoes, right?

Thursday: Another run commute home. It was quite cold; I think 1 degree. It was so cold that my Garmin actually just stopped working! That was really weird, as it was fully charged and I’ve run in colder weather, but it turned right back on after it warmed up.

I ran 7 miles but it quit at 6.

I wore my Abbott 6 Star finisher’s jacket; it’s a warm one, but it was cold enough to need it.

Friday: I felt like I had been pretty tough with my outdoor runs the rest of the week, so I caved and ran on the treadmill this day. 200m repeats: 1 mile to warm-up, 20x200m, 1 mile to cool-down. 5 miles total.

Saturday: 20 mile long run. Oh my goodness…this run was so hard. It was snowing throughout the whole run, which was very pretty, but enough had accumulated that it was like running in sand. I had company with some friends at the Calhoun Beach Running Club for 12 of the miles, but the remaining 8 were alone.

For the miles with the club, we went through downtown to check out some of the Super Bowl activities and stopped for a quick picture. You can see in this picture how snowy it was!

Back to the run…really hard on me, mentally and physically. My hip flexors started hurting pretty badly from the footing. My legs were dead.

It was my slowest 20 miler in years, but I finished it. I kept going knowing that it was great training for Antarctica, as who knows what the footing will be like there. But man, it was tough and it took a lot out of me! I took a hour and a half nap afterwards…well, I napped after downing this ice cold nuun that Dustin left for me.

He also made me some delicious soft eggs with chives and truffle oil. DELICIOUS! It’s nice when he’s done with a run before me and decides to cook some food.

As for the drink, I am a Nuun ambassador and am truly a fan- cherry limeade is my current favorite but I think this one was lime. I drink it all the time.

That evening, we met up with my sister and her family at the Luminary Loppet on Lake of the Isles. It was quite cold, but we did the full 2.5 mile or so walk around the lake, stopping for a Surly beer (for the adults) and a hot chocolate and fire-roasted twinkie (for the kids.)

The Luminary Loppet was beautiful- there were ice sculptures, all kinds of candles/luminaries, fire dancers, and even an ice instrument band! Participants can cross country ski, snowshoe, or walk. We just walked, but we really needed our snowshoes due to all the snow we received earlier in the day.

A fun Minneapolis event. Embrace the Bold North!

Ice instrument playing band:

Fire dancers– the one on the right actually lit her ripped jeans on fire on accident. Whoops!

We ran into our friends Mason and Julie and their baby Evie there too, which was great!

You may have noticed our glow sticks; they were basically our ‘tickets’ to show that we had paid to participate.

Sunday: Kind of a crazy workout day- 7 miles on the treadmill, then a SUPER solidcore class (super meaning 65 minutes long instead of 50), then 4 more miles on the treadmill. I watched the documentary “Icarus” on the treadmill- highly recommend! Fascinating.

3 workouts in a day…

Tilda kept her eye on me for awhile when running on the treadmill:

Eventually she decided I was too boring, so she settled onto a couch in the basement instead…I know how you feel, Tilda. It was a big week, I’m tired too!

Summary: 60 miles of running, 1 [solidcore] class

Overall, it felt like a good week in terms of mileage. I did most of my runs outside, which is great training for Antarctica. I made not have been running fast (for me) but I was running and hopefully it counts for something.

Now it’s time to watch the Super Bowl IN MY CITY! Go Minneapolis, do us proud 🙂

I’m linking up with HoHo Runs and Taking the Long Way Home for their Weekly Wrap link-up, check it out: