The past week was a wildly busy one for me, as I served as an Alternate Deputy for the Diocese of Chicago to the 77th General Convention of the Episcopal Church (held in Indianapolis this year). This two week event required long hours in meetings, hearings, legislative sessions, and worship. My day started at 6:00am (if I wanted breakfast) and ended around midnight.
The first week I was able to get my run training "in" but that was largely because the 'heavy lifting' of Convention hadn't kicked in yet. But this past week was just way too busy to fit in my early morning runs without seriously sacrificing needed sleep time.
So the only run I did this past week was this morning, when I got my 7.7 mile Long Run done. It was 69F outside at the start which was fine, but the humidity was 91%! I have come to realize that the humidity affects me far more than heat. The higher the humidity, the more difficult it is for me to sustain my run pacing. But I got it done, and with an 11:18/mm pace which included a couple of walk breaks.
This was a cut-back week, but 7.7 miles was not exactly the weekly mileage total I was shooting for. Part of me wishes that I had gone ahead with a 5AM wake-up on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in order to get my 4-mile training runs in (a 7-mile week just makes me feel like a slacker). But my brain knows I made the right decision given the demands of the daily Convention schedule.
Hopefully, this will have no real impact upon my readiness for the Rock-n-Roll Chicago Half Marathon that I am running on the 22nd (next Sunday). We will just have to see. I am more worried about that the temp/humidity levels will be that Sunday morning. I want to run a solid race, but my finish time goal could be tossed aside if the weather is too hot and humid.
The other impact of the Convention was the kind of meals I had. Breakfasts were either non-existent or too high in carbs. Lunch and dinners were usually at a restaurant called Champions (attached to our hotel) and everything they served was large portions and high calories. And because the days were long and intense, I definitely enjoyed myself at table. And it didn't help that the snacks at our tables within the House of Deputies (legislative sessions) were far from 'healthy'.
So I gained about 8 pounds in two weeks! Oh. My. Gosh!!! That is just totally unacceptable, and I am really kicking myself in the butt for just throwing my usual caution 'to the wind' (as tasty as those meals were). The good news is that in the last three days, I have already lost 4 of those pounds. But still, that is something I cannot allow to happen. But I did not have a strategy for handling meals during the Convention, and I paid the price for that lack of planning.
This week will be focused on losing a few more of those unwanted pounds, while still keeping myself hydrated and properly fueled for the upcoming race. These two goals might be mutually exclusive but I am going to give it a try. This is my 'taper week' for the Half Marathon, so I will likely only do two Easy Runs this week (Tuesday and Thursday mornings).
Total Marathon Training mileage to-date is 83 miles. After the Half, that following weekend will be another challenge for me. I am taking some youth to a weekend leadership conference (and I am supposed to run a 14-mile Long Run that weekend). I will have to figure out how to fit that run in, since it will take me about 2.5 hours to run at my Long Run pace. I hope they have running paths at this conference center because 14 miles on a treadmill wouldn't be my first choice.