On Monday after work, I did the next run on my training schedule. This was a 4-mile run at a pace of 11:18 min/mi, or 5.3 mph on the treadmill. For some reason, this run seemed too hard. Possibly it was because I had done a long run (of only 6 miles) the day before plus the two hours of tennis. I also wondered if it was because when I run on the treadmill, I'm running in the relatively warm house. I don't know.
Tuesday morning, I did "workout 1" from Nia Shanks's website. I think I've described it here before. I also did some foam rolling and stretching.
On Tuesday after work, I did the next run on my training schedule. This one was my first speedwork on this training plan. I did this on the treadmill. I did a 1-mile warm-up at 4.7 mph, which felt very slow. Then I alternated 1 mile at 6.4 mph with 1 min at 4.7 mph. Finally, I had a 1-mile cool-down at 4.7 mph. I got through the first fast mile with no breaks, but it was tough. I was starting to feel like I had a band around my chest so I couldn't breathe well. I'm not sure what my heart rate was doing, because I felt like it wasn't reading right on my Garmin. I had to take some breaks during the next two fast miles. In order to "cool" myself during this run, I turned on the small fan on my treadmill, and I wore my neck ice-pack. I was definitely a little cooler, but I'm still not sure if this is a big issue.
Wednesday morning, I did my agility and plyo workout.
Wednesday evening, I had a 6.5 combo match. My partner and I won, 6-3, 7-5. This was a good win for us! Our opponents switched sides in the second set, which definitely helped them, but we managed to adjust and get the win.
Thursday morning, I did "workout 2" from Nia Shanks's website. I also did some foam rolling and stretching.
Thursday evening, I had a 7.5 combo match. Unfortunately this ended up being a loss. My 4.0 partner and I won the first set easily 6-0. One of our opponents was a big hitter and had a hard serve, but she couldn't get it in in the first set and made a lot of errors. In the second set, she stopped making errors, and they managed to win the set 6-4. We couldn't figure out how to adjust and also lost the match tie-breaker. Definitely a bummer.
Friday morning I decided to get an extra hour of sleep after my late matches the two nights before, and I skipped my morning workout. In the evening, my husband and I had a 7.5 mixed combo match together. This turned out to be quite a match. The opposing man was a very big server and hitter, with a lot of topspin. I really had trouble getting his balls back in the first set, and my husband was making some errors, too. We lost the first set 6-3. But we both managed to tighten up our play in the second set, and we won it 6-3. We kept the momentum in the match tie-breaker and won the match. That was very satisfying.
Saturday morning, I did the next run on my training schedule. This was 5 miles at a 11:18 min/mi pace. I did this outside on Sligo Creek. It was about 30 F, which was great weather to run in. I managed to get 4 of the 5 miles within my pace target, which was good. I missed the other one fast.
Saturday afternoon, I played two hours of tennis with our Saturday contract time group at Wheaton. This was fun!
