Week 12 down and another great week! I did much better than usual getting in some cross-training and I also continued to see more improvement in my endurance. I am still a bit bummed I cannot use Nike Run Club as it’s intended for the running plan, but it still does an excellent job serving as a guide. Apple Fitness+ has been a pleasant surprise though. I have really been enjoying not only the workouts, but the music pairing as well. Even though I wish Apple would have more categories than Trainer, Duration and Music under each workout type, as well as better workout descriptions, the workouts themselves have been great and I am enjoying the new weekly content. Not to be outdone, I have noticed Nike Training Club starting to put out more options aimed at general fitness and stretching. So I’ll have to pick a week where I start exploring those.

Monday 1/18

To start off the week, Nike Run Club had me doing a 3.5 mile endurance run. However, I was bit more exhausted than I planned from Sunday cleaning, plus I got done work pretty late, so I ended up only getting in about 2.5 miles. HR was consistent, but I was just too tired and I noticed my form starting to get a little sloppy. Therefore, I called it a day. I still got in my NTC warm-up though.

Tuesday 1/19

Another really late work day. The plan was for a 3 mile tempo run, but I ran into the same issue with the Monday night, where I was just too tired. I played it safe and rode instead. I did a 56 minute trainer ride, gradually increasing resistance every 10 minutes until I was at max resistance on the trainer and my gears. I did notice some strange HR jumps at the beginning of my ride, but overall decent HR progression as you can see from my chart.

Wednesday 1/20

For my rest day I did a trainer ride as always. I am not sure if my watch was working for this though, as my HR wasn’t tracked at all for a gap, then it spiked for a second to 158, then was in the 80s the rest of the time. Oh well, any wrist-based HR can get wonky, but I don’t enjoy wearing a chest strap, so I’ll deal with occasional glitch.

After my ride I was a little sore and I wanted to try out more Fitness+ workouts. I went with Core with Sam, a 10 minute workout. Overall this was pretty fun and for a 10 minute workout, it definitely helped get me loose. Of course my watch got its act together for this workout, so the HR was definitely on point. I still might try an HR strap at some point to compare the different workouts, but that won’t be for a while.

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Thursday 1/21

NRC called for a 6×400 meter (1/4 mile) speed work. I warmed up with my NTC Wake-up Warm-up. Again, had an issue where my watch didn’t track any HR during that. It’s been extra cold in the basement, so I have been warming up with my sweatshirt on. I wonder if it got caught under the watch slightly. I’ll definitely need to be more careful.

Anyway, I hopped on the treadmill to start my speed work. I forgot to tighten my watch and there are some HR gaps in the beginning. However, from a training standpoint, everything went really well. I was a little tired, so I only went at 7.2 mph. You can see from my HR getting up to 157 I was definitely a little more tired than usual. I still finished strong and had a great session. I would like to be getting these speed sessions more in the mid to upper 7 minutes per mile, but I’ll get there. I was around 8:30 minutes per mile for each segment.

Friday 1/22

Another Friday, so another NTC workout. However, I was feeling a bit sore from my speed workout yesterday, so I figured I should do something to help loosen up. I started with a 10 minute Fitness+ yoga workout, Yoga with Dustin. This session helped open up a lot of the sore areas I had, so this was great! To close out my rings, I hopped onto the bike for just under 12 minutes. I didn’t do as much working out since we ended up doing our house cleaning after work.

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Saturday 1/23

For my long run, NRC dropped the distance down to 6.75 miles. They seem to do that the week before there will be a substantial jump in mileage. Thanks to the yoga last night, even though it was short, I was feeling pretty good today. I still did my NTC warm-up. I then hopped onto the treadmill and got in my run.

Overall I was consistent with my Galloway splits, but I did have 3 times where I need to walk for an entire segment. This worked out well though and I finished strong. One really exciting thing I have been noticing is that my legs and body are not feeling so exhausted that I can barely move. This is especially important because the purpose of the long run is to go at a relaxed pace. Even though I definitely could not hold a conversation towards the end of my run, I am seeing more and more progress with my endurance. Also, my HR was on point the whole time!

Sunday 1/24

I was feeling pretty good today. Definitely a little sore, but nothing to write home about. I wanted to try out some more Apple Fitness+ workouts. I have been pleasantly surprised by the workouts, and Apple is putting out new routines weekly. At some point I might try and start building a library of favorites.

I started off with my NTC Wake-up Warm-up to get loose. I then followed that up with Fitness+ HIIT with Kim, which was a 20 minute HIIT workout. This really got my HR up and was a lot of fun. Nothing was overly challenging, but they still had modifications, which is really nice. To cool down I decided to try out one of the Mindful Cooldown routines; Mindful Cooldwon with Molly. At first it seemed kind of pointless, as there was not very many moves. But the combination of breathing and with the few moves really relaxed me a lot. As you can see from the HR graph, it worked really well, and it was only 5 minutes! I really want to start doing more cool downs like this, as it really helps both mind and body, especially after any intense workout.

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