Week 8 NWM Training

I was nervous about this week's training but am happy to report that I got through it : ) I'm sure it's normal to be anxious about achieving new levels of mileage but as I breakthrough such milestones, I hope my confidence grows too!  Not an easy truth to admit for this self proclaimed tough cookie :)


Speaking of cookies, Anna and I made a batch of Nutella cookies this afternoon that were a-m-a-z-i-n-g! Clearly, I'm still not watching my diet stoo closely! I'll proclaim in earnest here, however, my intention to continue my weekly food round-up on the blog to help keep me on track :)  And indeed progress has been made! This weekend I'm happy to report that I tried out two new recipes! You can check out Garlicky Linguine with Maple Tempeh now and Savory Bean and Spinach Soup tomorrow (I'm cooking that tonight).


To return to the original topic of this post, however, this is how week 8 shook out:

Total Mileage: 39.8 (new record weekly mileage)
Total Duration: 6.21 hrs

Below are the details of my runs this week that I tracked on dailymile.com:

The one thing that tripped me up a bit this week in both good and bad ways was the arrival of (1) a new pair of shoes (Saucony ProGrid Kinvara 3) and (2) the Nike sports watch. The first couple of runs with my new shoes were great. Clearly, my Brooks Adrenalines weren't providing the support anymore, and it felt great to get a new pair. The heel, however, is a bit loose. So, on my run today and on Thursday, the shoes were cutting into the back of my ankle. Today, I actually bled through my sock and on the shoe! Gross.


Then, the hubs so kindly bought us a pair of Nike sports watches. I used it for the first time on Saturday for my long run and was psyched. The watch connected quite quickly to a satellite and I was off - happily tracking distance and pace. Since I had mapped my route out ahead of time (the reason why I still use mapmyrun.com), I was surprised that I was coming up short on the miles as I was getting close to my place.


I was even more surprised when I uploaded my run details and found that my average pace was around 11'15". No shame in that but surprised as (1) the current pace I tracked throughout the run was regularly around 9'50" and (2) I haven't run at that pace for months and feel that I would notice such a drop in speed. It bothered me a bit that day and into the evening (when I passed out at 9pm on a Saturday night).


Then today, for my recovery run, the same story. It was harder to determine the precise mileage, however, as Sara and I randomly turned around somewhere a bit past half-way on the golden gate bridge. At the halfway point, however, mapmyrun claimed I ran 8.16 miles versus my sports watch, which said 7.5. I realize these are all seemingly ridiculous details but for the person logging the miles and caring deeply about pace and distance - they are surprisingly non-trivial.


My solution? I reset the watch with the manufacturers settings and then reloaded the Nike+ software. I also turned 'off' the foot pod sensor and have my fingers crossed for when I run next on Tuesday. My plan then is to use mapmyrun to pre-determine mileage for the route and also use my iPhone Nike+ app at the same time to compare. Here's hoping for the best...I just hate it when my toys don't work properly :(


If you've managed to read  this post down to this point, congratulations. And thank you, for bearing with my whining. Week 8 was definitely a milestone for me (and note to self: that's the most important thing to remember)! :)


I'll wrap with a few photo highlights:

New purple shoes!

We dog-sat this guy all week. Booger. Yup, that's right, Booger. He and Anna had an amazingly tight bond (sorry Sasa). They were inseparable all week.