Rock n Roll Half Marathon + Marathon Training Recap: Week 5

Heading in to this week, I was a little nervous about how my motivation would hold out. This past week was spent up in northern Michigan with my husband and parents for a week of vacation. I was eager to get away this week after many days spent house hunting, and originally anticipated that my motivation would be low after such a stressful week.

However, I was able to complete all my runs as scheduled with even a little more motivation than usual thanks to having a regular running buddy with my mom. Running on vacation can be challenging, but this week away was exactly what I needed to refocus on my training and get back in the groove.

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The week ended with even more travel, as we headed down from northern Michigan to Chicago for the Rock ‘n Roll Half Marathon. I ran this race with my sister in law and was so happy to complete it! After a few weeks of chaos, we are back home and ready to be productive before packing up and moving across the state. With all that being said, here is my marathon training recap from this past week.

Indianapolis Marathon Training Recap: Week 5

Monday, 7/16 – 4 miles

The week started out strong with 4 miles that went by even quicker than expected. I ran with my mom on the roads near the house we rented for the week, and they were even hillier than I anticipated. The sun was shining and the humidity was high, but the miles still went by quickly.

Tuesday, 7/17 – Yoga

There was no DVD player where we were staying so I completed my yoga poses without the DVD. Even without the narration, this yoga routine was a huge help in relieving muscle tension and pain from the past few runs. I always feel so much better after completing these yoga poses!

Check out the yoga poses here!

Wednesday, 7/18 – 5 miles with 4 x 400s

The first speed workout of marathon training was a success! We ran a 1.5 mile warm up, 4 x 400s with 400 meter recoveries, and a 1.5 mile cool down. The 400s for this workout needed to be completed at a 2:11 pace, and we were able to complete all of them within a few seconds of this. I was really happy to discover that this pace felt relatively easy, as I wasn’t sure what to expect. I am excited to build upon this workout and continue increasing the intensity of these speed workouts!

Thursday, 7/19 – 1.5 hours of Kayaking

I decided to swap out my strength training workout after we went on a 1.5 hour kayaking trip (mostly out of laziness). I was really surprised by how tired my arms felt after this kayaking trip! We kayaked the Sturgeon River, which is very fast moving with a lot of turns and branches in the river. All the turning and quick moving required a great deal of arm strength and really gave me an upper body workout.

Friday, 7/20 – 4 miles

This run was a great one! The weather was much cooler – temperatures were in the low 60s and running felt great. The miles flew by and even the hills felt very easy. Having someone to run with really makes a big difference on these week day runs.

Saturday, 7/21 – Rest

We spent just over 6 hours in the car driving from Northern Michigan to Chicago but finally made it to the expo.

Sunday, 7/22 – 13.1 Miles: Rock n Roll Half Marathon

I wasn’t sure what to expect with this race, since I hadn’t been training specifically for it and wasn’t very mentally prepared. I ran the entire race with my sister in law, who was running her second half marathon. She completed her first in 2014 but hadn’t run much since so she wasn’t sure what to expect.

The race set up was really well executed! We were able to walk to the start village from our hotel in the morning, hit the porta potties and get in our coral in very little time. The corrals seemed a little off because my corral had pace leaders for times that were almost 45 minutes slower than my usual finish time. We moved up a few corrals to get closer to our running pace group and waited for the start.

Each wave started separately, so we ended up having to wait about 20 minutes to get to the front of the corrals. After the first few waves started it began to rain pretty hard. The forecast had been calling for rain on and off during the day, but after checking the radar in the morning I didn’t expect it to rain nearly as hard as it did! It started to pour just as we crossed the start line but luckily it was a warm rain.

Finally at 6:50 am, we were off. We ran the first 6 miles faster than I usually do, even though I tried my best to slow down the pace. We missed the first few mile markers so I was feeling a little discouraged with how slowly the first mile went by until I realized we had run 3! The rain slowed down a few miles into the race and we settled into a groove.

Around mile 6 my sister in law hit a wall and we slowed down quite a bit. Even so, we made it to mile 10 before walking at all and were surprised by how quickly the miles were going by! Usually the beginning miles fly by and the last half feels incredibly slow, but this race was just the opposite. We continued running slowly but were still feeling great! The rain came back even harder for the last few miles and didn’t let up for the rest of the race.

The first half of the race course took us all through the city with some great views. The second half took us south for a few miles before we turned around and headed north along the lake, back to the park where it started. As soon as we turned we could feel the wind much stronger which really made it challenging to see with all the rain!

We finished in the pouring rain but were so glad we did. I was happy that the rain was warm throughout the race so I never got cold, even when it stopped and our clothes started to dry. The size of this race was perfect – there were plenty of people so we were always motivated, but not too many that the course was crowded. I was so impressed with how many people were out cheering on runners even in the pouring rain! Chicago is a great city to run through.

Now that the race is complete, I am excited to focus my thoughts and training on the marathon. There are just 15 weeks to go now and long run mileage is about to increase. I can’t wait! Here’s to a new week.

Previous Running Recaps:

• Indianapolis Marathon Training Recap: Week 4
• Indianapolis Marathon Training Recap: Week 3
• Indianapolis Marathon Training Recap: Week 2
• Indianapolis Marathon Training Recap: Week 1
• New York City Marathon Race Recap

>>Check out our 20 Week Marathon Training Plans!