Gasparilla Training Recap: Week 9

Week 1/16-1/22

What a week it’s been! Training is finally catching up with me, and why wouldn’t it as I begin to close in on the finally miles before tapering begins. This week was H.I.I.T week at CG and normally the exhaustion starts to set in during this cycle of every camp but this week was different, I only made it to two classes this week. However, normally I’m not training for a race so challenging as Gasparilla that it knocks me off my feet and extra day or two. I don’t have to go to CG everyday, overall I’m pretty fit and my health is in condition and I have no weight issues to worry about. It’s more the feeling of getting a good workout in, there’s no better feeling to me personally than to start my day off with a nice 5a sweat session. That and I have some pretty awesome fit friends who I enjoy starting my day off with. Yet rather than ignore the signs I listened to my body and really stuck with my training plan this week.

Monday: Rest day.

Tuesday: Heeded the advice of my trainer and took it easy on the pre-run with two miles before camp. The workout was called “Stop and Go,” which incorporated a lot of sprints, 2 miles worth of sprints.

Wednesday: Pretty much for the last month the Wednesday that coincides with a back to back long run is a rest day, but the last two back to back long run weekends I haven’t been following that. I opt not to run that morning but instead see how I felt when the alarm went off that morning to determine if I’d go for just the workout. Sure enough 4:30a came all too quick and was quickly reset for work rest day alarm.

Thursday: Resumed training, but kept it easy with a 2 mile run before camp. It was a no run workout, but counting the miles from our warm up lap, cool down lap and additional travel work as part of the warm up.

Friday: Rest day.

Saturday: The first day of this weekends 20 miler total. My BRF, Montana over at Pretty Lil Mudder came to me for our 9 miles for the day, which we took to the beach. We did a little bit of incline training on the bridge but still took it easy knowing we had another long run to do in the morning.

Admiring the sunrise from atop the Sand Key Bridge.

Sunday: Wrapping up this weekend’s mileage with 11. I headed an hour south to run with Montana in her neck of the woods, where again we took it down near the beach. I was worried that another weather front would hinder our run, as the Clearwater Distance Classic was cancelled due to severe weather forecasted to move through the area. The same type of weather impacted my last back to back long run two weekends ago, so I really couldn’t afford to be missing these crucial long distances so close to race weekend!

As the day progressed into the evening the weather alerts started coming in.

Thankfully we got another early start to beat the storms, however the wind was brutal and made for a rough first half of the run. Once we made it to the turn around and the wind was to our back we were golden and the miles flew by!

Combined 20 miler deserves a star jump at the end!

I also got to use this new hydration pack, which Montana picked up for me the day prior. This came in good use on our long run and I look forward to using it more in the future on some other local routes that I haven’t been able to run due to the lack of water provided.