San Jose Rock 'n Roll week -7

A week ago I finally got serious about the fact that I have paid the very expensive registration fee for the Rock 'n Roll San Jose half marathon, so I should probably start training.  I pulled together a training program loosely based on Greg McMillan's You (Only Faster) 4-5 day/week plan and this week was my first week of trying to be somewhat more serious.

I missed many of the marks I'd set for myself as work and life were a bit crazier and with more travel than I hoped.  But, compared to my previous effort levels, this week was okay.

M:  As promised, Bikram.  It kicked my ass but started me in the right direction.  I'm committed to going back tomorrow and will do my best to complete at least one of every of the 26 poses in the sequence, and, ideally, two of most of them.  And, of course, I will do my best to stay in the room for the entire 90 minutes.

T: 4 miles easy in 40 minutes with no stops in the 87F heat.  Much higher effort level than it looks like it should have been.  Best workout of the week. 

W: 40 minutes easy on the Embarcadero.  Dodging tourists has to develop some lateral stablizing strength to compensate for the slowing, right?

Th: headed to the track for what looked like a *very* difficult workout.  Forces combined to kill it, so I bailed after 1 mile warm-up and an 800 that was slower than target pace for the 2000s I was supposed to do.  My track shoes (Brooks T7s) were brand new and, somehow, much too small, cramming my toes and causing numbness, despite being the same size as all of my other Brooks shoes.  Also, my right ankle was still grumpy at me from rolling it last week in SF.

F:  4.61 easy miles at home.

Sa: 3.2 mile run along the river in Spokane.  Progression effort.  The last 5 minutes I was pushing it quite a bit, but I started *very* slow and easy.  Avg pace 10:06.  Most enjoyable run of the week.  The riverfront trails in Spokane are gorgeous.

Su: Super slow and easy 85 minute long run.  7.35 miles for an AVG pace of 11:34.  In my defense it was almost 90F when I finished.

Total Mileage:  27.06.  Execution: C-.  Missed the long track intervals and the 85 minute long run was much slower and shorter in time than I would have liked.  This second item I can only blame on the lack of a Garmin and sleeping in (which felt awesome).  So, since I rarely sleep in, the real question is whether I should buy a Garmin or complete the training cycle for SJRNR without one.  I'm leaning towards doing the training cycle without a GPS pace watch just to see how it treats me.  Perhaps I'd benefit more than I realize by doing a cycle running solely by self-assessed effort.  Only one way to find out...