Next time I try to train for a half marathon while I’m doing a triple whammy of 70+ hour work weeks, living out of a hotel room and sustaining myself on restaurant food and the occasional protein bar, someone please shake some sense into me.

Now that the 3-week vortex has chewed me up and spit me out on the other side, it’s time to catch up on a major backlog of training recaps. Let’s hop into the DeLorean and scoot ourselves back to the beginning of the month.

#SeaKatyWheeze – Week 13 Recap

Worth keeping in mind: I walked a mile to and from work daily, had to work 10-hour days EVERY DAY for 3 weeks straight.

Day 85 – Sunday 7/2

REST DAY

I huffed and puffed and wheezed and cramped and kind of cried for 11 miles the day prior. Not for nothing, I also managed to go 25,339 steps at work that day.

Day 86 – Monday 7/3

Run 5mi HR<145

I was beyond grateful for some heart rate mileage, you don’t even know. Including the 5mi run (approx 7500 steps), I put 30,071 steps on the Garmin that day. Busy day at work spent hustling a lot of heavy cases around. SPENT.

Day 87 – Tuesday 7/4

REST DAY

Happy 4th of July! Only 13,000 non-running steps that day. I thought for a minute maybe I’d wake up and run before having to leave for work at 7:15a, but with how much time I’d spent on my feet Monday and having finished a 5-miler just 12 hours before, my body had ZERO fuel in the tank.

Day 88 – Wednesday 7/5

1mi Warmup + 5 x 1000m (.675mi) Repeats + Cooldown = 6.7mi

This run was titled in my app: What is Stamina and How Do I Get Some?

First of all, the stop & start of crossing city streets for the first 3/4mi of each run is annoying. By the time I got down to the river, I said F this, cut a mile from the recommended 2mi warmup and started in on my (wannabe) speedy efforts.

I hate how fast I fade when I’m trying to go all out on something. It feels like any time I try to give more than 90% effort, as soon as I fade out I’m COOKED and can never get the mojo back.

I was really hoping this run would be like those 800m repeats I successfully did on the treadmill back in June, but… you can tell that my pace got progressively slower each time.

Thank heavens for the sun not setting in Minneapolis until 9pm. I always try to be cognizant of my surroundings, especially when I’m in a big new city. I wasn’t exactly keen on the idea of being outside on my own after dark as I was still getting familiar with the area.

Yet, when you don’t get home from work until 6:40p, you have no choice but to be out running until 8:30p.

Eating dinner at 9:30p and promptly going to bed afterwards sucks, BTW.

Day 89 – Thursday 7/6

REST DAY

*crickets*

Day 90 – Friday 7/7

REST DAY

I SHOULD HAVE woken up at 5a to go run a few miles, knowing I had tickets to see The Shins that night after work. Woke up at 5a, and the next thing I knew it was 6:42a and I had to hustle to get ready for work.

The Shins were great and I ended up having fried cheese curds for dinner. Not my proudest moment.

Day 91 – Saturday 7/8

Run 8.3mi

Knowing I was in the wrong for already failing to work out Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday AND Friday, I knew that Joanna would have my head on a stick if I didn’t get outside and move.

Eight miles were the long run she had programmed for the week. I was thankful for the small reprieve in distance, but with the busy week I’d just had at work… the downward spiral of being stretched too thin had already begun, and was the only thing picking up speed in my life.

Looking back at the data, looks like I actually was able to keep putting one foot in front of another without stopping to cry about it for the middle 7 miles of this one, with an average pace of 10:27.

My goal was to keep the pace under 10:00/mi. That did not work.

This Week’s Mileage: 20 miles // #SeaKatyWheeze Cumulative Total: 229.25 miles