Mon - 9 miles
Tue - 10.5 miles (Stride Workout - 10X30 sec)
Wed - 12.5 miles (Medium Long Run)
Thu - 8 miles
Fri - 11 miles (Steady State)
Sat - 7.5 miles
Sun - 17.5 miles (Long Run)
Total: 76 miles
This was an absolutely great week of training, one of my best in years. It taught me a couple things. First, I can still do the training I need to do as long as I’m smart about it, and second, I have a long way to go to get to a point where I can race at fast paces again. The good thing is, due to the first item, I can work on the second!
As for the workouts, my legs were a little tired and heavy at times, but they actually held up and responded pretty well throughout the week. My biggest problem was it seemed every time I had something of quality to do, I ended up doing it into a headwind. That included Tuesday’s stride workout, Wednesday’s medium long run, and Friday’s steady state. It was poor planning on my part because I did a lot of point-to-point runs where I had Leslie pick me up at the end, and I should have structured them differently. However, based on where we were staying, it was pretty boring to run North and lots to see running South, so I just headed South most of the time.
That said, the stride workout went pretty well, maybe my best to date. The medium long run the next day, however, was one of the most difficult runs of my life, both physically and mentally. It was warm/humid and I did the entire thing into a 20-30 mph headwind with gusts over 40. There might not be hills at the beach, but I’ll take climbing over wind any day. I swear I was running 6:30 effort (as confirmed by my average heart rate), but I was struggling just to sneak under 7 min a mile (and several miles were well over). When I finished I was totally spent. I bounced back pretty well though and had a decent steady state on Friday. I wanted to run 10-15 sec per mile faster than I did, but again, the wind was a factor. I realized just how much of a factor it was on my cooldown. I did the last mile with the wind at my back and ran a 6:26, just 20 sec slower than the last mile of my steady state on what felt like less than half the effort. That made me feel a little better about not being any quicker, although regardless I know I’m just not capable of running very fast right now. Anyway, I finished the week out with a nice long run on Sunday with Andrew joining me for around 12 miles of it, during which we covered the Bank of Fincastle race courses. Needless to say, it was a quick reintroduction to hills. I finished with several miles in the 6:40’s and a 17th mile of 6:19 feeling pretty strong. It was a good cap to a solid week.
This week I’ll back off a little as I’m probably in need of a recovery week and my plan going forward is to take a drop back week at least every 3-5 weeks. At the end of it, I’ll “race” my hometown 10k with no expectations whatsoever. It will basically be my steady state run for the week and whatever happens happens. I’m not going to get too far out of my comfort zone, and I wouldn’t even do it if it were any other race, although I think I might jump in a few races over the next several weeks mainly as workouts. I’m having fun again and just looking forward to staying healthy and improving over time. On I roam!
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