A Workout Example - Making the Time, and Making the Timing Work

Yesterday was my biggest midweek workout ever. I had 1 hour strength training session with my sadistic trainer Donnie scheduled for 8 pm, AND my coach Jeremy had put down 10 miles in my 50-miler training plan. How to fit it in when I'm a mom and part-time business owner?

I worked and had meetings while the girls were in school (sometimes I swap things around and try to do workouts during their school time), so I knew I had to get it all in at night. This is going to sound disjointed, but it's a reflection of what life is like!

5:30pm, wolf down a dinner and change before hubby gets home at 6 pm as he said he would feed the kids.
6 pm kicked off the workouts.

6:00 pm - 1.3 miles in the 100 degree heat index around the neighborhood.
6:30 pm - 4.1 miles when I picked up neighbor and running pal Sarah who wanted 3-4 miles.
7:30 pm - covered in gnats and nasty sweaty so wipe down and change shirts
7:50 pm - 0.55 miles on TM waiting for trainer to be done with previous session
8:00 pm - 1 hour session where it feels we did everything to aggravate my core, quads, and hamstrings. Good endurance training but painful. Thanks, Donnie.
9:00 pm - 2 miles on TM, hill program up to 4% max grade.
9:30 pm - rushed home because I didn't know if things had changed that my husband would have to go into the office to put out any fires.
9:40 pm - cleaned up a little, hopped on our home treadmill. Found out our treadmill motor was burnt out. It was used and lived a good life. I had already been thinking to replace it in the next month.
10:00 pm - 2.05 miles on TM, hill program up to 4% max grade, at the gym again which is luckily 3 minutes away.
10:45 pm - Back home and done for the day. Time to shower!

There you go - that's 3 hours and 10 minutes of workouts totalling 10 miles running and 1 hour of strength training.

I also know strength training is so nebulous so I asked my trainer to write down everything we did so I could reflect on how much we do in 1 hour. Our workouts change EVERY time based on what's sore, what's tweaked, what workouts I've recently done in my running, and what's coming up in the next couple days, and how mentally I'm feeling.

Here was last night's workout...

Squat to Snatch (glutes/hammies) with 10 lbs - weightlifting - 3 sets of 12 reps
V-up (core) - on back on floor, touch arms/legs then apart like a V - 3 sets of 12 reps
Cleans (glutes/hammies) with 20 lbs - weightlifting - 3 sets of 12 reps
Side Jackknifes (core) - 3 sets of 12 each side
Overhead Walking Lunges with 9 lb bar - 3 sets of 20 reps
Hamstring Curls with 85 lbs - 3 sets of 12 reps
One-Leg Lateral Balance and Reach (quads, hamstring) - 3 sets of 15 each side

So there you go. There's an example of my day where I was just trying to get it all done. And an example of why I long to be an 8 minute miler, where that workout would have taken about 45 minutes less. LOL. I want to be fast solely so that I wanted have to worry so much about time efficiency.

50 miler training continues - 6 miles on the plan for today, then a rest day, and then back-to-back 14 milers this weekend.

Happy Running!