Here’s all of the Marine Corps Marathon training-related activities I did last week (“planned” workout in green/“actual” in bold):
Monday: Rest. (light biking)
Tues: 3/3.1
Wed: 5/5.2. Everyone’s favorite speed workouts: FARTLEKS!
Thurs: 3/3.1
Fri: Rest. (light walking)
Sat: 5/6.25 with ~750′ elevation gain. The heat wave finally broke, and I woke up to foggy and cold skies. It was so cold that I decided to wear a long sleeve shirt, but it wasn’t until the Gypsy Runner and I drove over the Briones Reservoir that I remembered how much sunnier and hotter Orinda can be. D’OH. Luckily, the trails were just as sparse as ever, so I felt brave enough to run in just my sports bra and shorts. This is still one of my favorite trails, even with the brutal climbs.
Briones Reservoir. I think I take the same photo every single time, but I just love this view!
Sun: 11/11 with 550′ elevation gain. Group run with DD, AL, and AS on the Lafayette-Moraga Trail/Path. The 3 of them started at 6:30 am on the Lafayette side. Wanting an extra hour of sleep, I decided to meet them on the Moraga side (their turnaround point). We all ran together back toward Lafayette, then I ran alone back to Moraga. It was the perfect compromise — I got to sleep in and still have great company for half of my run.
Wrap-Up: 27 miles/28.65 total. This was my biggest week of the year, volume-wise. I’m okay with going over the planned mileage since next week is a cut-back week. I still need to work on core and PT exercises (I sound like a broken record…).
***
4 random things from this week:
1. We went to see Monsters U. It wasn’t as good as the original, but still pretty cute and clever. Pixar does it again.
2. My Garmin froze on Saturday. I had to perform a hard reset, which is way more complicated than I had imagined… but I guess it makes sense since it erases ALL of the data. Good thing I had just backed it up on Wednesday!
3. Get well soon, RC!!
4. I had a low-key, but fun 4th of July. How about you?
sparklers on the 4th
Howdy! My name is Jen and I live in the San Francisco Bay Area. I like to eat, run, and blog, but not usually at the same time.
Running Tangents 
Lucky you, getting so many trail miles in this week. And I resorted to sports bra running this week, it was HOT! Would love to run Briones with you soon!!
Yes, we should definitely do Briones!! But maybe later in the fall when it’s cooler and when you’re schedule clears up a bit.
Congratulations on a successful high mileage week! It looks like you’ve had some awesome places to run those miles too!
Thanks, Sherry! I’m definitely very lucky to have such pretty running trails nearby.
We both chose the program with two runs on the weekends…our mileage totals are going to get intense on the weekends in about 6 weeks or so…great job and I need to get up to the bay area soon and hit these trails…swoooooon.
Yeah, you’re totally right — the first 6 weeks are pretty manageable, but then it gets a little cray cray in Hal’s world. I’m totally ready to chuck the shorter weekend run if I feel like it’s too much… but I definitely want to try at least one of the 30-miler weekends just to see if I can do it. Do you have any 30-miler weekends in your plan?
I am going to stick with it barring injury…<>. The most I hit is 26 on 8/18 weekend. Still a ton considering last week I ran 25.5 for the entire week!
Dude, I know exactly what you mean!
Way to overachieve on your training!! I had to do a hard reset on my Garmin once and I agree that was complicated!
Hopefully neither of us will have to do that reset again!
LaMorInda! Great job on getting all of your miles in last week! We’re planning on seeing Monsters University, but we’re waiting until the children of the world have all seen it first, so we won’t feel as awkward walking into the theater without any kids.
Haha, we had no shame about seeing the movie sans kids. I figure that Pixar movies are just as much for adults now as they are for kids (or at least that’s what I tell myself).
I am so jealous of that trail view. We have nice ocean views from a few sections of our trails but almost zero elevation gain which sounds great but no…not for marathon training.
Yeah, the hills are definitely painful during the run, but they do pay massive dividends come race day.