Despite the nasty, rainy weather D.C. had all last week, I tried not to let my training plan be a complete wash (har har, bad pun intended). In the end I only missed one run, although unfortunately it was a tempo run. Kind of a bummer, but not the end of the world. There's still plenty of training left to go.

Here's what my week looked like:

Sunday: 3 miles easy

Just a nice, easy recovery run after my speedy 5K on Saturday to loosen my legs up for a great week of training.

Monday: 7 x 400

My first taste of interval running in a long time. I did these on the treadmill because there's not a track near me and it's easiest to control my speed on the treadmill. I actually sort of love interval workouts in a training plan because they are a quick and dirty hardcore workout.

Tuesday: 3 miles easy

In the pouring rain.

Wednesday: OFF due to rain. Was supposed to be a tempo run.

Thursday: 3 miles pace

The run that killed my iPod. It wasn't raining when I left the house, but two minutes in it started torrential down pouring. My iPod died minutes later. I need to put it in some rice or something. I've heard that can bring them back to life. I think the rain made me run faster though.

Friday: OFF. Moved my long run to Saturday because of the rain.

Saturday: 90 minute long run + 9/11 Memorial 5K

My long run was excellent. I took it nice and easy and just enjoyed being out for the longest run I've done in months. It was a pretty nice day for a run, although it was a bit humid, which killed me toward the end. I managed to complete about 9.6 miles in 90 minutes.



The 9/11 5K was a complete last minute addition. Ryan called me at 11 a.m. telling me he had an extra bib and I decided to use the 5K in place of my easy 3 miles that I had scheduled for Sunday. My legs actually felt a million times less sore after the 5K than they did before it. Reason # 546 I'm really glad I did that race.

Total mileage: About 25 (not sure exactly how much recovery distance I did between intervals on Monday)

This was definitely a solid first week of training for me and I'm really happy with the fact that I only missed one run despite the rain. I was also really encouraged to see that I managed to keep a pretty steady pace throughout the duration of my long run. That's something I tend to struggle with, but I felt really strong the whole time I was doing that run.

I was also really happy with my ability to be flexible this week. The rain definitely could have put a much bigger damper on my training, but I thought I did a decent job of going with the flow and fitting in my runs as best as I could and shuffling things around when I had to. If I can keep that up through the rest of training, I think I'll be ready to go for this race.


Goals for Week 2:

• Fit in all my runs
• Make sure my long run happens on Friday 
• Get enough sleep to sustain 4:30 a.m. wake up calls