The Laufen Mountain's Journey

As I'm winding down the Trailblaze for Wishes, I'm thankful for the opportunity it gave me. I took my foot off the marathon gas pedal, and was having some fun raising money. The other thing it did was take the pressure off long run Sundays, which I love, but it allowed me to explore some other hobbies.  I started Father's day off with an intense bike ride, which was just incredible! Ended Father's day with the most relaxing kayak ride. It's been so long since I've been in a kayak, and I'm happy it went better than the rollerblading I did last summer. Hoping to continue to get better, and get the kids excited about it too... well not mountain biking... cuz I broke my Huffy:(

I tried posting on Mondays to include my WHOOP data, but it's all been "great effort, sleep could use improvement" and Monday's are busy. I tried writing last week's post a few times, but kept getting side tracked.  I've officially kiboshed the marathon training plan until July. Trying to train for a marathon, do charity runs, cross train, do yoga and do things with my children was ambitious.  Looking forward to pushing for a four hour marathon starting July 24th. I've come to discover that Thursdays are my best PR days. I don't know why, but I tend to have my best runs on Thursdays.  Going to wrap up June with some morning runs for me, and some evening runs for charity. Seems like a good balance.

I ran a PR half today, and it feels pretty good.  I mean, I don't , I'm sore as hell! Last month I hit a PR of 2:01 and change. Today I did it in just under 1:55!  It was work, and I kept telling myself I'd let off after the next km. I'm happy I've pushed writing the blog posts to Monday, because yesterday I wasn't feeling awesome about my running week. I was purposely trying to taper, while doing charity runs, but still felt guilty for not hitting my weekly kms.  Today was validation for not hitting my weekly kms, and the actual good it will do. Even though I didn't hit my kms, I did a few costume runs. Those.are.taxing .  My Weekly Performance Assessment has the usual " optimal strain, sleep could use improvement " header. Which hammers home how strenuous running in a costume is. I'll be interested to see next week's WPA, because my strain for the half marathon was 20.5.  WHOOP uses a scale of 0 to 21 to measure strain. Which makes 20

Apparently if I wait till Monday, I'll have my Weekly Performance Assessment from WHOOP. Which is a little more insight into the past week running. I might have to try this Monday thing out for a bit. Today's WPA, strain was overreaching and sleep fell short... preach WHOOP, preach. I'm still not 100% and the runs I am doing are kicking my ass. Going to sleep in a little tomorrow and run after the kids go to school, so hopefully we can get that recovery up. After being sick and getting side lined with that for a week, I've been struggling balancing charity runs and training runs. Which in and of itself seems like an insane statement after re-reading it. I've had alot of fun, and definitely felt the support from my home town, doing these costumed runs. They've come with different and unique challenges, and hopefully some lessons learned.  Here's to finding fulfillment in this week's runs. 33.9km ran last week, 755.2km this year.

I'm disappointed that I only ran 10k this week. I was sick and the 10k I did run, was for charity. I should be more satisfied, but now, in this moment, I'm not. It's likely the lack of a cathartic run that has me feeling off. Which I'm hoping to rectify tomorrow morning.  I wish I had more insight, but I don't. Here's to a better week. Weekly distance: 10.9km (22.6km less than last week)  Yearly distance: 721.3km (12.2km ahead of 2,022km plan)

An absolute roller coaster of a week, ending with a man cold. A colleague passed away on Tuesday and it really overshadowed everything else. I poured me feelings into my run Tuesday night, I'm not sure if it helped, time will tell I guess. Was feeling really crummy and light headed on Sunday, so I canceled my long run. I felt guilty about it, less so today as I continue to feel worse.  I did my first Make-a-wish run as Batman, and the response has been overwhelming.  Here's to many more for a great cause! Weekly distance: 33.5km (13.4km less than last week)  Yearly distance: 710.3km (40km ahead of 2,022km plan)