Monday: 50 minutes stationary bike (low resistance, high RPM)

Tuesday: Easy 3 miles; pilates/yoga fusion

Wednesday: Arms/abs workout: dumbbell press (upped weight to two-20 lbs); tricep extensions; bicep curls; bent over rows (20 lbs); tricep push ups; medicine ball push ups; military press; Russian twists; bird dogs; planks

Thursday: Easy 3 miles

Friday: Leg workout – 16ish min bike warmup (5 mi); single-leg squats, regular squats, walking lunges, calf raises (all three directions); leg press (up to 270 lbs); hip adduction/abduction; hamstring curl with pilates ball; stretch/foam roll

Saturday: Total rest day

Sunday: long run – 6 (hilly) miles

This week, as is probably pretty clear, was a cut back week. I know they’re important, but they can get so freaking boring. Luckily, by Friday neither NB nor I could stand another easy three miler (actually, he’d just gotten back from a conference and I snacked after work instead of running – oops) so instead of running three on Friday and three on Sunday, we just did six on Sunday. I really don’t think we’re any worse for wear, though I don’t plan on doing it again.

I’m feeling stronger: I’ve upped the ante with my upper body and core workouts and keep incrementally increasing the intensity of my leg workouts. Tuesday’s pilates class, do to an MIA instructor, was subbed by a yoga/pilates fusion instructor. I kind of hated it. I love pilates. I love yoga. But this instructor… didn’t cut it. She was perfectly nice, but just whipped through all the movements so anyone even slightly less flexible than she (I’m not flexible at *all*) couldn’t keep up. There are also a lot of older ladies in the class that the usual instructor (Sabrina) accommodates, especially in her better tempo to the class. These ladies were in child’s pose quite a bit. Hopefully Sabrina will be back tomorrow. I’m kind of praying for this.

In other news: Saturday NB and I have our first race since January: Just a Short Run, in North Park. There’s a 30K, half-marathon, 8.1 miler and 5k. We’re doing the 8.1 miler – we actually have a 6 miler scheduled for next weekend, so this is a good option. I’m not sure I’m going to “race” it, but I would like to do it at goal HM pace. We’ll see how I’m doing. Our friends Rob and Cas will also be there (doing the 30K and half, respectively) and they’re both training for the PGH marathon. It’ll be Cas’s first full, so it’s pretty exciting. I imagine next year if I do the full in the spring, I’ll do the half or 30K of this race as a tune up.

In not so happy news, my ankle has been tweaking a bit since this morning. I think it just needs to be cracked back into place, but maybe not. I was stretching it and rolling over my arch quite a bit and have been icing it on and off since getting back from work. We’ll see how it goes. I have a tempo run scheduled for tomorrow (originally it was another 4 miler, with 2 at tempo, but we changed it to 5, with 3 miles at tempo pace, because we wanted to) but I’ll evaluate my ankle in the morning. I think it’ll be fine. We’ll see what tomorrow brings.