Weekly training summary and what I learned in school last week

(Picture from becomehealthynow.com)

I'm taking a neuroanatomy course this summer, which is very interesting, but brutally intensive. One of the topics that my professor covered last week is endorphins. Well, not exactly...he was talking about the hypothalamus and pituitary gland. In passing, he mentioned that the pituitary gland releases endorphins, which is what runners get after a certain point at their run when they don't feel pain and feel like they can run forever. I don't know about you, but my endorphin release tends to be short-lived. I usually get it 30-60min into a run, but then it goes away. Sometimes it comes back, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes I just have a completely miserable run devoid of any endorphins. That's kind of like what my running felt like this week, with the exception of the end of my long run.




Week of July 14 - 20:

Tues - 6.8km run with 15min @ tempo (5:55/km), 48:00, 7:03/km average pace
Fri - 15km bike, 47:25
Sat - 4km no Garmin run, 30:00 (approx), 7:30/km
Sun - 15km fast-finish treadmill run, 1:45, 7:00/km average pace
(80min @ ~7:20/km, 25min ramping from 6:15/km to 5:20/km)

Totals: run 25.8km, bike 15km

My two outdoor runs were horrible...as mentioned in a previous post, it was too hot for me and running made me feel like death. My attempt at a tempo run did not go well...I was going to try to hold tempo pace for 20-25min, but I ended up only doing 15min. And not as fast as I wanted to. It was pouring rain today, so I wimped out and did my long run on the treadmill. It felt awful until the endorphins kicked in at 30min, then eventually I felt good enough to try the last 25min at a faster pace. That felt great!

I would have liked to get out for a second bike ride. Hopefully I will get 5 workouts in this week (3 runs, 2 bike rides).