I miss races. Real races. The ones where you have a crowded starting line and people giving high-fives along the course. I miss those bad. Workout Wednesday posts were meant to be a recap of what workouts looked like for me over the past week, and Saturday I ‘raced.’ All by myself. This would’ve been my 6th time running Dam to DSM and I was excited. But instead I laced up and did 12.4 miles on my own. Didn’t bother setting an overall time goal. Instead, the goal was 1) run the entire thing and 2) aim for a ~8:15 avg. pace. Well 1:41:19 later I did it. 8:10/mile was my average pace. I’ll take it. Side note: did you catch last week’s post? Living for the messages I got in response to question #1!

The rest of my week was strong. I hit my goal of 6 core classes from the Peloton app and we got the dogs out for some walks. Loving the slightly cooler evenings, the boys really are too! Back to running quick. Currently sitting at 869.6 miles on the year. Dang those went by fast! Time for the fun part of Workout Wednesday:

Top 3 Questions of the Week

Thoughts on the spin bike you ordered…

Love it! I really can’t give a real review just yet, but stay tuned as I get a better feel for it. But first opinions are really positive. It was easy {for Kyle, LOL} to assemble and wasn’t missing any pieces, which is always a concern when you order from Amazon I feel like. The bike itself is quiet, sturdy and despite some negative reviews about the seat being hard, I think it’s totally fine. It has only been used for 2 5 minute warm-up rides and 1 20-minute Peloton class in the week I’ve had it, but I’m excited to make spinning a more regular thing. If you’re interested, BUY IT. The bike is now $25 more that we paid. I think it’ll just keep increasing. The only negative I’ve found is that you can’t track speed or distance. Easy fix! Ordered an odometer that’ll be here Thursday.

Why did you switch to On Running shoes? Which On style do you prefer?

I switched because I had the opportunity to try the brand, and I stayed with On because the quality is better than any other I’ve tried. **I did a full post on all about my experience w/ On you can checkout here!** Honestly, that post goes into a ton of detail so if you’re really interested, definitely dive into that further. But to quickly address the style question, I rotate between 3 pairs in 2 styles. I have a Cloudflow for long runs, a Cloudflow I use for recovery runs, and I use the Cloudflash for speed workouts. They are all TTS for me and I wear an 8 in all of them. Message me on Instagram & mention this Workout Wednesday post if you’re interested in trying one of On’s shoes. I have a 20% discount code I can share 🙂

How did you get faster?

I slowed down. Sounds counterproductive doesn’t it? Don’t worry, it took me quite a while to get down with the ‘slow down’ method. This article from Run4PRs {who I highly recommend following on social media & listening to their podcast} has been bookmarked since I came across it years ago. It resonated and from then on, I focused on slowing down. Even more so over the last 2 years. Now I focus less on pace and highly on heart rate for my long and recovery runs. This and this are other great articles on that philosophy. Besides slowing down, spending 1 dedicated day to speed has been key. I enjoy pushing myself on repeat 400 days, dread Fartlek assignments and love/hate thresholds. You should get familiar with all of those. They make a world of difference!

Workout Wednesday Workout of the Week:

FULL BODY WORK

What you’ll *ideally* need: 1 band, 1 medium-heavy weight dumbbell, 1 set of light dumbbells, 1 set of medium dumbbells. Modify this to make it a bit easier by doing 2-3 rounds instead and/or ditching the bands (do the moves bodyweight only). Want to make it harder? Up your weights or add 3 x :30 burpees between each circuit.