RTTC #227 Proof of Time Half Marathon Training Week 3

In this episode of Running to the Castle, Dr. Ali takes us inside Week 3 of her Proof of Time half marathon training, a week where life got lifey and the schedule had to bend. 

She explores how to triage your workouts when everything piles up, why the order of your training days matters more than you might think, and how building toward a race pace is a long game that requires patience, paced testing, and a willingness to get honest with yourself mid-treadmill.

From a breakthrough 30-20-10 to a strong 4.84-mile long run in Las Vegas heat, Dr. Ali shows what it really looks like to train smart when perfect isn't an option.

Learn more about Stronger. Faster. Finisher. !

Ready to cross the finish line stronger, faster, and prouder at your next runDisney race? 

Get personalized support, smarter training, and strategies designed specifically for slow, back-of-the-pack runners who want to build a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, have time for character photos and energy to enjoy the Disney Parks. Learn more about the Stronger. Faster. Finisher. Program today and be the first to know when doors open!

Free Resources

• Follow me on Instagram @rundisneydpt
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• Check out FREE training plans for injury-prone runDisney runners on my website. 
• Book a Free 30 minute Call with me if you're wondering how you should train and if working together makes sense.
  
  Hi, I'm Dr. Ali
  I've been running for 15+ years and been in the rehab space since 2012 when I earned my Doctor of Physical Therapy Degree. I get injury prone runDisney runners across the finish line without feeling broken.

Transcript

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Hey, how's it going? Today I'm talking about Proof of Time Half-Marathon Training, Week Three. This is Running to the Castle, a podcast for slow, back-of-the-pack Run Disney runners on a journey to running magical miles. Join me, Dr. Allie, as I share the secrets I've gathered as a runner, doctor of physical therapy, and coach. You'll learn the exact ways I get my clients to the castle strong, have a bigger buffer ahead of the balloon ladies, and have time to stop for character photos. Keep listening if your goal is to PR in fun, cross the finish line without feeling broken, and have energy to enjoy the Disney parks. This week, I needed to change things up a little bit. So I mentioned last week that with Tuesdays being a little bit more hectic, I should change around my skeleton training. And so I did. So now I've made Tuesday be a rest day, and I have made Thursday be a cross training day, Saturday be a rest day. And I'm hoping that that will work well for me to make it so that I can train two or three days in a row, then have a day off and just keep it like that every week. I will see how Thursday goes with cross training. I don't want like Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday without a rest day. But I'm also curious how I'm gonna feel Wednesday, Thursday, Friday without a rest day because Friday is my long run. But I think making Thursday be a cross training day is going to work well in my favor. And I won't do strength training on that day of what I anticipate. So we'll see overall how it goes. And it's it's changeable, right? Like it's it's not set in stone. It's literally a dropdown in my scheduler and the one that I created. This is the same one I use for stronger faster finisher. And you can adjust week to week, or I can adjust the whole skeleton. If I adjust the whole skeleton, it moves them all. It one unfortunate thing is it doesn't move everything moving forward. It moves everything. So if you move it and you've had like three weeks' work of worth of workouts, it's going to change the previous workouts. That might be something I need to change just for consistency's sake. So when you go back and look, you can be like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, that was a progression run. Instead of seeing like the change of now, it says cross training and there's gonna be a mismatch. I'm just you guys are hearing me talk about this in real time as I'm realizing this. So I will see how I can make that change. If I can make that change, I'm sure I can. So what was this week? So week of May 18th, I needed to change things around a little bit. So I'm gonna start on Tuesday and Wednesday and then work my way backward. So Tuesday, again, I knew a workout wasn't gonna happen because of what my morning was. I didn't even want to stress about it. I changed it to a rest day. Skeleton and all changed it to a rest day. Cleaning lady came again at 8 a.m. So I actually took that opportunity to do some ironing that I hadn't been doing. And it just piles up and I did it and I got it all done, which is great. It took me a long time. I had to finish it later in the day, but that's okay. I did that. I took Levi to the park at one point so that he could, it was getting hot. So what I like to do is when I take him on a walk when it's hot out, I'll take him to a park because that's the only place that is going to have real grass where I live. If you don't know, I live in Las Vegas and they have made new rules that I mean, some people are grandfathered into it, but new homes, new communities, unless it's a public park, cannot put in real grass. So we're doing our backyard, like landscaping it and stuff. We're not even allowed to have real grass in the backyard. So to when it's hot out, I'll just drive him to the park and let him smell around the real gr grass. It's cooler, cooler on his feet. It's cooler in general because of the grass and the trees in the area. And then he just gets to sniff around and it makes it, it works really well for him. So I did that. And then Wednesday, Wednesday was supposed to be a speed workout day and it didn't happen. So Royal had to go to the office for a big order for his work. And that doesn't happen all the time. This was important. So I drove him down there. I took Levi and I just spent most of the day at the office doing computer work. It's not ideal to switch around my workout schedule to accommodate that schedule, but what are you gonna do? That life got lifey. And so it rarely happens because of with the house we moved into, he doesn't need to be at the office all that often. And I just I switched it around. So I switched it from Wednesday to Thursday. And I had plans to go for a walk, basically do a cross-training activity on the treadmill after my QA for Stronger Faster Finisher. And that didn't happen for a good reason. The QA I thought was gonna be like 45 minutes to an hour, and we were on there for two hours, just people asking questions about what the program is like, if it's right for them, which was great. And so by the time I was done with that, it a 45 minute walk wasn't gonna happen, which is fine. So it just meant that the week just got jumbled around. So Tuesday and Wednesday became extra rest days. And then I made Sunday a rest day as well because I wasn't gonna make this mistake again. I wasn't going to do four workouts in a row. And because I would have had to had done Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, actually, I would have done five workouts in a row. I am just realizing that that now. So it's really good that I made Sunday to be a rest day as well, because five workouts in a row, it's not the ideal situation. If you have to do it, right? Like if your workouts have to be Monday through Friday or you're never going to work out, like so be it, right? Like your body will get used to it. We will ramp up appropriately. We will make it so it's speed, cross-training, speed, cross-training, long run, in whatever order it needs to be to work out properly, so that you have a day off in between speed work, you have a day off between speed work and long run, and so on and so forth. And we will make it so that you slowly ramp up to being able to do the five days in a row, you know, first starting with just speed workouts and long runs, and then slowly over time adding in the cross training, or vice versa. If you're not regularly doing speed workouts, but you are regularly doing cross training, there are ways to make it work. It's not ideal. It's better to be able to have two or three workout days than a rest day, and then two or three workout days and then a rest day and keep it going like that. It helps decrease the risk of injury. It helps keep your motivation because I mean, just like work, right? Like Monday through Friday, by Friday, you're spent. Like, I don't know how many of you know this, but when I worked in the physical therapy clinic, so I worked at Rhode Island Hospital outpatient clinic for a couple of years. And when I was there, they wanted me to do four 10 hour days. I'd never done it, but I was really interested. I actually, when I had hand surgery, my OT, she actually did four 10-hour days. Now she had Wednesdays off. At Rhode Island Hospital, I had Thursdays off because that's what they wanted. They wanted me to work Monday, Wednesday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday off because the clinic was so busy on Thursdays. They actually didn't really have a place for me and then come back in on Fridays. So I did that. And man, that was wonderful. Like, really, what's an extra two hour on top of an eight-hour day already? Like it, it worked out really nicely. And then when I moved to Las Vegas, I did that, but I asked for, well, I asked for Fridays off and I did get Fridays off for a little bit, but then I switched around and I took Wednesdays off. And so I worked Monday, Tuesday, day off, work Thursday, Friday, and then the weekend. Man, that was so good. And it's like the same concept with your workouts. Working Monday through Friday is drains everybody. Like everybody is ready for the weekend, and then we dread Monday coming along. I don't want the same thing for you and your workouts. I want you to be ready for that next workout. And when I worked two days, then one day off, and then work two days. Like Wednesday was a nice break for me. And then I was ready to go back on Thursday. And it was never too overwhelming, right? Like it's okay, I just I just need to work two days and then I have a day off. And then I just need to work two days. And it's like, I just need to work out two days, or I just need to work out three days, and then I'm off, right? And then I get a rest day. And I just think for the mindset aspect of it, it it helps keep things feeling fresh, not overwhelming, keeping it like doable. It's like, let's just look at these next couple of days and not the dread of five days in a row. Oh, I could, I just, I have to get, I have five in a row. How am I gonna do it? And that's like how my mind works. So that's one of the reasons I schedule Stronger Fast Finisher and myself the way I do, because I know how I feel when I've had four workout days in a row. I don't know how I'm gonna feel with five workout days in a row because if I've ever done that, I haven't done it in years. And I have seen it work much better to keep motivation high and keep consistent with a workout, with a workout program. So anyway, and it's actually it's funny. So Sunday was a rest day, and I actually felt ready to go and do a run or do a cross-training walk or something, which is great because I felt motivated and I wanted to keep the consistency going, but I had the discipline to not, because in my mind I thought, no, hold on to this energy for tomorrow, because tomorrow is a speed workout day. Or, you know, this was the thought on Sunday. It's like, okay, well, tomorrow, Monday is a speed workout day. Don't go too far too fast, right? Like, don't get ahead of yourself. Because if I work out on Sunday when it's supposed to be a rest day, but I work out because I feel motivated and I want to latch on to that and I want to keep going, keep that motivation going. I'm actually going to kill my motivation. If I do the speed workout on Sunday, or if I do a cross-training workout on Sunday to quote unquote keep it light, I'm, I, I know myself. And this happens with most of my clients as well. They think, okay, well, I'm gonna do this because I want to keep the consistency going. And then that next day, when they actually are supposed to do the workout, they're not motivated to do it for whatever reason. Maybe it's something else was supposed to get done that day before that should have been a rest day, like grocery shopping was supposed to get done, a little cleaning was supposed to get done. I don't know what it is that doesn't end up getting done for probably the reason of, well, I want to go for this workout. And so that time is replaced, and now you have to go do that the next day. Or your body has now had cumulative stress on it, even if it doesn't feel stressful to your brain yet, your body could be feeling it. And then that next day, you don't go for that workout. And so now you've missed a workout and now you're bummed out, you're upset with yourself. Why can't I just stay consistent? And to stay consistent, it's it's better to just follow the plan. So starting at the beginning, knowing, okay, what can I realistically do? And each week, like what can I realistically do on a regular basis and follow it. Having the mindset of, well, I'm motivated today, so I want to keep that going. It's going to catch up to you. And eventually, even if it's not the next day, which it oftentimes is, even if it's not the next day that it catches up to you, it's going to catch up to you eventually. And then you're going to start having weeks at a time that you're not working out. And it looks like you can't be consistent. It looks like you're not motivated when in fact you, you're, you're just overdoing it. Your body has all of this cumulative stress on you. So you need to have the discipline to ignore that motivation on that one day and take a rest day. Do something else. Go do that grocery shopping that we were you were gonna do, or go do something else active in the house, you know, not a crazy amount, but do something that needed to get done. Okay, anyway, let's go back to Monday. So Monday was a progression run. Holy hard. Holy hard. I am trying a new run-walk interval, three minutes running, one minute walking. And I'm using that for my easy runs, my long runs, my tempo, which I haven't done a tempo with this pace yet. And it it also goes with my progression run. And this is good news for you because I have learned that this is so incredibly hard that unless somebody doesn't walk at all, like does not use run-walk intervals, I am not going to recommend this progression run. And I won't be programming it for people. So you get to benefit from my mistake. And so what I had programmed was run three minutes and it's in one minute segments, and then walk one minute. So my progression run starts with pace A and I run one minute at pace A, and then I run one minute at pace B, and then I run one minute at pace C, and then I walk. And in the very first segment, I couldn't even get it done. And these are based on my pace testing. So I started at 0.1 mile per hour higher than my moderate pace. And I got through those first two segments and my legs started feeling weak. Like, I don't know if you've ever felt that feeling like your blood is just like draining. You usually feel it when you're ill, or if you've ever stood up too fast, which I talked about last week. And I took it safe and I did two minutes of walking instead. So I ran two minutes, walked two minutes. And I was going to continue that. I was gonna keep doing two minutes, two minutes, but then I worried about the faster times on the treadmill. So I actually opted for one minute run, one minute walk, and alternating like that. And I got up to 8.3 miles per hour and ended at 8.0 miles per hour. Walking started at 3.5 miles per hour. And here's the kicker: I needed more recovery. So I actually went down to 3.0 miles per hour for the walking segments. It's more important on a speed workout to hit the faster times. So it's more important to either extend that recovery time and or slow down the recovery time, like the pace that you're doing in that recovery time. This was my first attempt at these paces and these segments on the treadmill. I way overestimated my abilities. And maybe it's the strength I did before this because I did do part of my my one rep max testing for 35 minutes. So maybe my legs were a little tired from that. They didn't feel like it, but they still could have been. But no matter what the reason, it's best to stay safe. I'll adjust my progression run moving forward and I will do one minute run, one minute walk. It was so incredibly hard. So I do think that doing run one minute, walk one minute will still be challenging for me. And if running one minute, walking one minute doesn't feel challenging enough by like by the end of it, then I can just increase my pace when I'm doing the running portion, right? Like there are ways to manipulate it. Now, not every running segment is going to feel like a struggle for me, especially the first couple. And it can give me a false sense of security. It can give you a false sense of security. I talked about it with the 30, 20, 10 in one of the previous episodes, where sometimes it feels easy and you're like, okay, I'm just gonna increase it more because this isn't hard enough yet. And I invite you to not do that during that workout. It's okay if that workout by the end of it didn't really challenge you. If you felt like, oh, this is not hard by the end of it. You can always increase your pace next time. It can be unsafe to really adjust your pace in the moment if you're on the treadmill. Now, of course, outside, you do what your body feels like it's needs to be doing. But the point of the progression run is A, to get outside your window of your upper limits, right? And I know starting at 0.1 mile per hour faster than your moderate isn't starting outside your upper limits. But by the peak, you're at least getting close and it's cumulative, right? It's over time, you're at least running faster than you normally would have had you not had these paces. Now, your pace should be starting at 0.1 mile per hour faster than your moderate pace. You shouldn't be starting all the way down at your easy pace, unless you've never run on a treadmill before. You and I have talked about it in the program, and we have decided, yes, might as well start slower and just get used to the running this fast. That there are ways to there, there are reasons that I might say that's okay. But for in general, it should be starting at 0.1 mile per hour faster. And you're cumulatively adding these paces onto your body, right? And you're not recovering so much that you're necessarily completely recovered, but recovered enough. But if you change it during the workout, you could overshoot it and potentially get injured. Like literally, like just fly off the treadmill. Like we don't want that because your legs couldn't keep up. And so, so I don't want you to do that. But I also don't want you to be thinking about, oh, by the end of it, I should be dead. Like I should be dead to the world. I can't do anything. Like it's it's not that kind of struggle. But during, during the running portions, you should be feeling like, okay, like I'm huffing and puffing. At one point in the running cycle, you should be thinking, when is this gonna end? I'm not sure I can keep up with this current pace. When do I start going back down? That's when you know the progression run is challenging enough for you, where you're starting to ramp up in your speed during the running portions. And you're like, oh my God, like, can I do this for the whole time that I have designated? The 30 seconds, the 45 seconds, the minute. Am I going to be able to do this? Am I going to be able to go faster on the next one? Like, you're going to start thinking those things. But it shouldn't be impossible. Like for me, doing three in a row, that was impossible. That was not going to be a safe situation. And so I adjusted it. But you also shouldn't be getting to the end of the workout and being like, Oh yeah, not once did I question my life choices during this speed workout. Like you should be hitting your, I'm going to cuss a little bit pace. One of my followers on Instagram posted, like, I found my cuss a little bit pace. Like you should be feeling that, like questioning your life choices. But by the end of it, you should be recovered because you have done the cooldown and everything like that. So if you're feeling like, oh, this isn't a struggle for me, I invite you to question where in this is it not a struggle? Is it not a struggle because you keep recovering completely between segments? Okay, maybe up your walking pace a little bit. Or is it not a struggle because by the end of it, you're like, oh yeah, I did that. But yet it was hard when you were doing it. Like there are multiple places or multiple ways that this might not feel like a struggle. And I invite you to dive into that just a little bit deeper. Okay, enough about Monday. Let's go to Thursday, where I did 30, 20, 10. Now, overall, so well, I did 30, 20, 10, and I did a strength workout. Overall, a good strength workout. I made an educated guess on weights based on my one rep max and my desire to do eight to 10 repetitions. I overestimated some, but was spot on for most. And I'm not sure if the ones I was wrong for were because of the order of the exercises and the rest time. And like I wasn't actually rested. I did, I did alternate. I did a leg exercise, then an arm exercise. I honestly, I didn't work wanna work out this day, which is interesting because I had just had two rest days in a row. But I had two like kind of stressful rest days. So I just I said to myself, okay, I'm just gonna go use the machine for strength. And then the plan was to do cross training. And partway through my strength, I was like, I could do a speed workout. So the speed workout, incredible, incredible. Like, remember when I was saying that the 30, 20, 10 a couple of weeks ago was absolutely terrible, awful, and I kept having Tell myself, oh, I just can do anything for 30 seconds, I can do anything for 20 seconds, I can do anything for 10 seconds. Well, it was amazing. And I was crunched for time because I procrastinated this workout in the morning. So after the strength workout, I actually cut my warm-up by five minutes, which was okay because my body was warmed up from the strength training. And I cut off two minutes from my easy run. So my intervals are three minutes running, one minute walking. So I did three minutes of easy running and then I cut off the one minute walk and then the one minute run after that and got straight into the 30, 20, 10. And it was just amazing. It it felt so good. I had to question. I literally questioned myself and I had to check that I was actually pressing the right paces on the treadmill. And so I put the the iPad on my screen of my treadmill so it covers my paces. And it wasn't until the last set that I was like, all right, this is tiring, but my speed for all of the intervals was on point. And like I moved my iPad to actually check that I was hitting the buttons right. And it wasn't just registering my first button tap. And it wasn't, it was registering everything. And it wasn't until that last segment that I was like, oh yeah, maybe this is tiring. And maybe that was all mental. Like the whole reason I cover that part of my treadmill is so that I'm not just staring at how long I've been doing that segment or the distance I've gone. Like I cover it. So it, I don't look at it, I don't stare at it. But this time I was. So maybe that was a mental piece. I don't know. Maybe it was a strength workout ahead of time. Maybe it was the packet of Ritz crackers I had during the speed workout, the peanut butter Ritz crackers. Maybe it gave me more energy, or maybe the strength workout gave me a better warm-up, or maybe it was just I had such a tough time with the hills and the progression run in the past couple of speed workouts that this felt good in comparison. Maybe it was just a good day. Maybe it was I had worked out later in the day, and that procrastination worked in my favor. I just, I don't know what it was. It really doesn't matter. I didn't want to work out at all after staying up late for treatment, worrying. So I was, I was just up late. I slept in until 7:30, though. I had an English muffin, raspberry preserves with butter, a coke while I walked Levi. I finished it right before my strength workout. I made sure to drink a lot of water this time to go along with that coke. There were just so many factors, and I may never know why it felt so good. And it doesn't really matter. Maybe I will try and reproduce some of these things, but it felt good. And remember the 30-30-30 rule. 30% of the time it's gonna feel pretty bad. 30% of the time it's gonna feel neutral, and 30% of the time it's gonna feel really good. It shouldn't be all the time really good. It shouldn't be all the time really bad, and it shouldn't be all the time in between. It should be a variety. Okay, so that brings me to Friday long run. This was 4.84 mile run. This run was actually really good. It was challenging, but totally doable. At first, I really thought I wasn't going to be able to maintain the pace I had set out, which was an average of 12 minute per mile pace, run intervals aiming for between 10 minutes 30 seconds and 11 minutes 10 seconds. I did overshoot it a fair amount. I still set my watch to alert me when I was outside, when I was outside that pace. And I think I noticed that if I stay outside that pace, either ahead of schedule or behind, and I just stay in that range, it won't alert me again. But if I bounce between outside ahead, right on target, or outside behind, if I bounce between those, it will alert me each time. So, like one of the previous weeks, I think maybe I was just outside, either behind all the time or outside ahead of pace. And so then it was only alerting me once, making me think like, oh, it's not alerting me. But this time I was kind of bouncing between like just ahead of schedule, just ahead of the pace to in range, to just ahead of the pace to in range. And it was alerting me a lot. Now, of course, there were behind range too at different points, but that's just what I noticed. And I did end up keeping my time intervals, my intervals at the time of three minutes, one minute. And I paid attention to the distance ran. So I had told you that I did the math. And so I should have been doing 0.27 or 0.28 in all of my run intervals. 0.28 would have been best, but I was happy with 0.27. And I and it was warm at starting at starting the run at 77 degrees and finishing it by 82. It was 82 degrees. I wore my usual attire. I was a little sweatier than usual, but overall fine. And I made a point to finish my water before I got to my first park. So I refilled my water with scratch and liquid IV at the first park. And I, like I said, I kept my intervals the same. In the first two miles, I was ahead of my average 12 minute per mile pace. And by about 30 seconds, for the last two miles, I was within seconds of the 12 minute per mile average pace at 12.02 and 12.05. That's spot on for my last two miles. I would like those first two miles to be closer to 12 minute per mile pacing. And you may be thinking, 30 seconds isn't that far off. And it's not for one or two miles. But if I'm aiming to do that for 10, 15, 20 miles, that adds up and it will exhaust me. So getting within 10 seconds would be my ideal. It would be even better if I was a little bit slower. So the 1202 and the 1205 to me is better than 1158 or 1155, right? Do you see that difference? I would rather be a little bit slower than my ideal pace than being a little bit faster or definitely not a lot faster. With the heat, I'm going to be adjusting my long run pace to be one to two minutes per mile slower. Although this run was doable, I'm just not sure how sustainable it's going to be as it gets hotter. I will do a pace long run in a couple of weeks. It's originally supposed to be next week, but I'm going to push it until the following week because that following week, I'm going to be doing about 6.2 miles anyway. So I'm going to use that as a test, as like a race pace test. And also this upcoming week, next week, I have a tempo run as one of my speed workouts. And I don't want to do a tempo run and a paced long run at in the same week. That's that's going to be tiring. And so I'm going to use that to gauge how far off I am from my proof of time, this paced long run. You might be asking, well, what's a paced long run? So a paced long run is a long run, but it's not an easy long run. So paced anything in my world means you're aiming for a designated pace. So paced walking, meaning you're going to walk a designated pace, could be 16 minute per mile, could be 15 minutes per mile to improve your walking pace. A paced long run is going for those longer miles at a designated pace. And I usually recommend your long run be easy miles, easy pace, keep it slow. However, what are recycling miles, meaning I'm not ramping up my miles for the first time in the past couple of months. I trained for the 10 miler. So I trained up to, I think my longest distance was about eight miles for that 10 mile race. So I trained up to eight miles. So I can now in this training block, because I didn't lose fitness from that training block, I can actually go up to eight miles, but do it at a fast pace to test my limits. And I can only do this because I am in the specific training block I'm in. I'm in my build phase. I'm building my pace. I'm building my speed because I'm doing this proof of time. But I'm not officially in training for this 6K, 6K race, 10K race, 6.2 miles. That won't start until like August 1st. Don't quote me on that date, but it's around August 1st. So up until then, I can go up to eight miles and do it as a paced long run, meaning I could test my race pace, which I'm going to do. I'm going to test my race pace in two weeks. I'm going to get out there early, which means waking up early. I'm going to eat a carb-heavy pre-race carb load the day before. So that means a baked potato at night. That means carbs during the day. I'm going to treat it like a race week because I need to gear myself up. I can't go on empty and say, oh, can I maintain this pace? How well can I do? No, I need to make sure I have enough energy in the tank. I need to have those carbs ready, right? And so I'm going to do it. But I have the luxury of being able to do that right now because of the planning I took and I made sure to not lose fitness after my last race. I didn't lose all of those training miles, time on my feet. And now I get to use that to my advantage to test my race pace on a longer run. And then once it becomes time to actually train for that 10K, I won't be doing paced long miles anymore. They will be easy. But by the time August 1st rolls around, because that's still more than two months away, my easy pace likely will be faster. I will, I will be fitter. That's the goal. And so I should actually have the race pace by August 1st when my race is September 27th. Because I should be going into it, having or at least close to it, right? I may even have it. Who knows? Maybe I can do it in these next two weeks. I don't know. That's why I need to test it out. I'll still get faster during that training for that 10K because I can still practice my speed workouts with progression and 30, 20, 10 and tempo and hills, of course, but I won't be testing it on the long runs. So I technically won't know. Well, can I maintain this pace for a 10K? I won't know exactly because I won't test it again during that time frame. But I'm going to use this time and do a couple of paste runs between now and August 1st to see, okay, how does my body feel trying to do this pace? What do I need to do ahead of that race to make sure I have enough energy in the tank? I feel loose and limber enough. I don't feel tight, stiff, and tired. And then what do I do afterward to not feel miserable for a week or two afterward? Right. And so I get to practice it. And so then in when it's getting closer to that race, no, I won't actually have been testing it for those six to eight weeks, but I'll have a good idea because I know how my body will feel running, trying to run that race pace. And I'll be able to do that regularly during speed workouts. So I know what my body will feel like. So then on race day, I can tell, okay, this is going to be somewhat close to race pace, or I'll be able to tell if I'm overshooting it and may gas out and have to actually pull myself back, go slower, or I'll be able to feel in my body, okay, this feels too slow. I have to pick it up so that I keep going, right? And I can make it on race day. And one thing, I don't think I've mentioned this so far. One thing to keep in mind when you do a race, you're not going exactly the race distance. You're not going exactly 6.2 miles for a 10K. You're not going exactly 13.1 miles for a half marathon. So you actually need to go faster. So you need to plan, like, okay, I'm gonna go 6.4 miles. How fast do I need to go during those six point to get a proof of time of under 108, right? Because they look at finishing time. Did you finish this race in 108 or less? They don't look at, oh, well, she actually went 6.4 miles. So the pace she held match. They don't look at that. They look at the finishing time. So even if you maintain the, I don't know, let's just say it's, I think it's a 1055 minute per mile pace for a 108, 10K finish. Even if your average pace was 1055, 10 minutes, 55 seconds, if you if you run 6.4 miles at 10 minutes and 55 seconds, that's going to be longer than one hour, eight minutes. Does that make sense? So that's why I have like a race day pace calculator in my stronger faster finisher program. So then you can see, okay, well, I want to run this distance in under this time. And then you see, okay, this is what I need to run during my run interval. This is what I need to walk during my walk interval, and then plan to go faster. Plan to go a little bit faster. So, as an example, I put in my race calculator, okay, I want to run a 6.2 mile race. I want to go a 10K. And I put in one hour, five minutes just to give myself a three-minute total buffer. I don't know if that's too much or too little. And that says that my target overall average pace needs to be a 1029, which means my running interval needs to be a nine minute, 11 second pace based on my running intervals. Actually, I put in 120 for my run interval, but I actually am doing 180 seconds, 180 seconds. So let's see if I can change this. See if that changes anything. Oh, it does. So my run interval being three minutes long instead of two minutes long, it actually changed it. My run interval needs to be nine minutes and 35 seconds. But let's let's do the math. So one hour, eight minutes, the target average pace would be 10 minutes and 58 seconds. But let's say I'm gonna go 6.4 miles, that's gonna take me an hour 10 minutes. So I need a two-minute buffer somewhere. So I think the hour five minutes is a good, a good estimate. And so that means that my target average pace needs to be 1029 instead of 1058. And my running interval pace needs to be a 935. And so that's how I can start figuring out well, what pace do I need to be running? It's just simple math. And then, so getting back to the workout. So after my long run, I felt pretty good. And so I went and did an arm workout, which was good. And overall it felt great. And then on Saturday, um, I did cross-training. So I wanted to go out for it and I wanted to strength train. So I walked Levi, took him on a snifari first. We did like, I don't know, 20 minutes or so, and then came back home. It was a little warm. It was already 80 degrees, but I decided I'd rather go for a walk outside than on the treadmill. I did grapple with walking outside versus being able to record myself on the treadmill for footage on Instagram content. But I said, you know what? No, I want to go outside. I'm gonna go outside. So I did 45 minutes paced walk outside, which remember, paced, the term paced in this case means I'm aiming for a specific pace. My goal was a 15 minute per mile. I was a whole minute off, but I did get 16 minutes per mile, which was great. And I did know it was gonna be a stretch walking that fast in my in my neighborhood. But shoot for the moon, land amongst the stars. I managed 16 minute per mile and a little bit faster than 16 minute per mile on each of my uh intervals. So came inside, did some strength workouts, and honestly, I didn't really feel like doing it, but I did leg day. And so I got three workouts, three strength workouts this week. So that's a positive. I did whole body workout one day, I did upper body another day, and I did lower body another day. So that was at least two upper body and two lower body workouts. That was a big win for me. And I actually, I really didn't want to do it. So I took extra long rest breaks and I was actually answering questions to my stronger faster finisher wait list members. I was answering their emails of questions they had about their specific cases and writing a new email with some frequently asked questions. So I was doing that in between sets of my strength workout. Killed two birds with one stone, I got it done, I got the I got the strength workout done, I got those emails done. It was perfect. And then I stretched, I foam rolled. Oh, I forgot to mention I stretched, foam rolled, massage gun after every workout. And after the speed workout, the 30, 20, 10, and after the long run, I did a hot Epsom salt bath. I didn't do one after the cross training. I didn't feel like I needed it. It wasn't that challenging for me. So I felt like my legs were going to be fine the next day, and they were. I did have an English muffin with raspberry preserves and butter for breakfast. I did not have a Coke today. I did have coffee and I brought a water and a glacier freeze Gatorade on the walk. So got my hydration, got some electrolytes that way. And I already mentioned to you that Sunday was a rest day. So that brings me to the end of week three. Overall, solid week. It was a really good example of doing the workouts that support my goals and being able to take extra rest days when life got lifey. So I prioritized speed workouts and strength workouts this week because my current goal is getting faster for this proof of time. So even though I had an extra rest day and I moved workouts around to accommodate changes just in my life, I made sure to still get my speed workouts and some strength workouts. Could I have just said, oh, I'm just gonna walk all week. Don't worry about the strength training, like go to the office with Royal and just walk around the office complex. Could I have done that and that have still counted as workouts? Absolutely. But in this phase of training for me, that would not have helped me accomplish my goals. If it was all I could do and it was that or absolutely nothing, it would have been fine. But when I had the chance, I just shifted things around. And instead of doing a cross training, which I had originally planned to do, I made sure to do a speed workout. And when I didn't want to strength train, I made sure to use the piece of equipment as opposed to functional exercises like squats, lunges, um, or dumbbell exercises or elastic band exercises. Instead of doing those that I don't really like, I said, I'm just gonna use my machine. I did, and that's what I did. I used my machine because that's what got me to do the thing. I still hit all, almost all major muscle groups. I did notice on my leg exercises, I did not hit lateral glutes, which lateral glutes are very important for runners, but not hitting it on one day is okay. And I made sure the next lower body day that I did do lateral glutes. I did quadruped fire hydrant exercises, you know, where you're on your hands and knees and you lift your leg like a dog at the fire hydrant. That's a glute exercise. And it's a core exercise. So I killed two birds with one stone because I wanted to do core, but I also had in the back of my mind, remember you missed lateral glutes the other day. And I, it didn't even cross my mind. It did not even cross my mind. But I will make sure that I include it. I can do it on the machine because it has a leg, nope, it has a cable that I can attach to my leg and do some sidekicks and stuff like that. I also can do like curtsy lunges or lateral lunges, but I didn't want to do that. So am I going to hem and ha and or be bummed out that I didn't hit that one exercise? Or am I gonna look at all of the other exercises I did? I'm gonna look at all of those other exercises I did. And that means I'm one step closer to hitting my goal because I adjusted my week to make it work for what I was going to be happy doing. If I'm gonna be miserable by doing squats and lunges and curtsy lunges and biceps curls and, you know, push-ups or whatever, things I don't necessarily like to do as much, well, that's not going to be enjoyable. And I'm gonna be less likely to stay consistent with that. But I really, I don't know what it is, but I really like using gym machines. That's why I bought one and put one in my garage. I've been thinking about it for years because I really liked going to the gym and using the machines. I didn't like going to the gym for the fact that it would take me 20 or 30 minutes to get there and change and this and that. And then it just, it Got so busy toward the end of the pandemic. I was waiting and waiting and waiting around for pieces of equipment. And it was so annoying to me. And at the house we lived at before, there really wasn't a good space for us to put in gym equipment. Could we have made it work? Yes, we could have made it work, but it really wasn't a priority. We knew we would be moving at some point. We didn't know when. And it was just very fortuitous that the floor plan of the home that we liked came with a massive, massive garage. It's literally an RV sized garage. You're supposed to be able to put an RV in it plus at least one more, I think, SUV-sized vehicle. And so we can fit two vehicles in the front. And then we still have a bunch of storage that still needs to get put away and uh like tools and things. We don't have a toolbox yet. We still have stuff that needs to get put away, but I'm using a good chunk of space. I have a Pilates reformer, I have the treadmill, I have the workout equipment. I have that big machine and it's great. It's glorious. So if that's what makes me get it done, that's what makes me get it done. And so if you are finding yourself needing to manipulate your schedule because life is getting lifey, and this week you just you can't get it all done, think what is my priority right now? What phase of the running journey am I in? Am I actively training for a race? Or am I just like right before training for a race? Like if you're gonna do wine and dine or dopey this time right now, if you're listening to this at the time it drops, then you you let's consider you in training mode because you're so close, right? Let's consider you in training phase. I don't know why I said mode. Consider yourself in training phase. So when you're in training phase, top, top, top priority is get that long run done. Get it done. That's top priority. If you get nothing else done, but you can get that long run done, you nailed it. Okay. Ideal situation, of course, is doing the other workouts. Doesn't always happen. If you're trying to build speed, you need to at least hit your speed workouts. If you're trying to get stronger, you need to at least hit your strength workouts. Now I'm trying to build speed and get stronger. So I hit my speed workouts. The get those speed workouts done, ideal situation would have been four strength workouts. I think three is pretty darn good, right? Now it wasn't three like full body. That's okay. That is not the point. The point is doing three, right? I doing two actually could have been fine as well. But so that was where my mindset was. My what is my goal right now? I can't do them all. I can't get every workout done this week. It just is not going to be possible. What is my priority? My priorities are to, excuse me, if you have more than one priority, you have a list, Allie. I don't have a list. So priority is speed. So speed workouts. Second on the list is strength. So that was order of operations. Speed first, get those speed workouts done. Next, get the strength done. Anything after that is bonus. If you are in training phase, priority is that long run. So take this information. I hope you continue to follow along. I did get a response that this is helpful. So thank you so much for sharing that. I love to hear from you whether you find this stuff helpful or whether it's really not relevant. Give me a suggestion on what would be more relevant for you. Go ahead and send me a DM, Run Disney DPT.