Mon - 7 miles (7:36 avg) - Hanging Rock Trail w/ Andrew & Matthew
Tue - 6 miles (7:25 avg) - roads/track in Salem w/ 6X100m strides last mile
Wed - 8 miles (7:28 avg) - greenway w/ Andrew & Matthew
Thu - 6 miles (7:40 avg) - trails at Greenfield
Fri - 8.5 miles (7:19 avg) - roads in Salem finishing on the track w/ 8X100m strides
Sat - 5.5 miles (7:41 avg) - from my house, roads and trails
Sun - 10 miles (7:18 avg) - from my house, roads
Total: 51 miles (7:28 avg)
As frustrated as I am much of the time, when all is said and done I can look back at the past few weeks and see that they’ve gone quite well. Such was the case for this most recent week, as I made more progress and topped 50 miles for the first time. Not bad when you consider I was supposed to go back to the doc this past Friday for new x-rays and to see if it would be ok for me to finally come off crutches – ha, ha.
My individual runs are up and down right now. Some days I see and feel the progress I’ve made, while others I feel like I’ll never be able to run fast again. Some days I just want to quit, and some days I have all those thoughts/emotions mixed together over the course of a single run. What it all boils down to is I have to constantly remind myself that this is going to be a long process and I’m going to have to be patient. Furthermore, I don’t know what the eventual outcome is going to be. I might end up hurt again; I might run faster than I ever have; or I might wind up somewhere in between. The only way to find out is to stay focused, try to be smart, march forward, and see what happens.
Anyway, as has been the case since I started back a month ago, there was nothing exciting about any of my individual runs this week. They were all just me going out and doing what felt right for the day. I have a basic plan of a little harder/farther one day and shorter/easier the next, but that’s about it. I did manage to add in strides a couple times this week, and those went well. No negative effects, and while they were anything but fast, they felt smoother and easier than expected. Also, my Sunday run was another barrier breaker. I cracked 70 min, and it was my first double digit mileage run since May 2 (4+ months) and the fastest average pace of the “comeback.” I’m sure the great weather helped, but hopefully it was a sign of things to come (and just might have been considering I was able to do 8.5 miles the morning after and lower my fastest average pace again, this time to 7:15).
More of the same on tap this week. I’m completely satisfied with my mileage for this past week and see no need to try to push it higher for the time being. I do, however, want to lengthen out a couple runs, especially my long run, so what I might do is run similar mileage but take a day off so I get it done in 6 days versus 7. My goals right now are 1) continue to stay healthy and consistent, 2) get my long run up to 13 miles, and 3) keep lowering the average pace of my runs until I feel like I’m at a point where I’m comfortable enough to start adding in some light workouts. If I can do all that by the end of this month, maybe I can start to accomplish something in October. The first of those goals is the most important though, so I will gladly sacrifice the others if I feel like I need to in order to stay healthy.
I want to conclude this post with a big congrats to my friend Jason Pyles, who this past weekend became only the second West Virginia native ever to win the Charleston Distance Run. You can check out an article on the race here (the grin in the pic says it all) and Jason’s blog here. Oh, and since winning a hilly 15 mile race on Saturday obviously wasn’t enough, Jason went out the next day and won the Pineville Labor Day 5k (and the $$$ that came with it) in 15:57. That was downright Wardianesque – ha, ha. Look for big things from Jason this fall and beyond.
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